Loving the Church, serving her as she wants to be served

"Beg the Holy Spirit to enkindle in your heart this fire of love for his Spouse," Bishop Alvaro del Portillo tells us in his letter from November 1988.

“A Christian who wants to act as a good child of God cannot be unmoved on seeing people rejecting religion and the divine demands. The first and most important response should be prayer, strengthened by the offering of small mortifications and well-finished work, with our heart and mind turned to the needs of the Church. This epoch of ours continues being a time to pray and to make reparation, as our Founder used to say, especially during the final years of his life here on earth. Then you and I will be able to sincerely say with Saint Paul: I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his Body, that is, the Church (Col 1:24).

“Loving the Church, serving her as she wants to be served, should be a ‘holy passion’ in us. Beg the Holy Spirit to enkindle in your heart this fire of love for his Spouse . . . Therefore it would be good for us to ask ourselves frequently: Do I truly love the Church? Do I suffer and rejoice with her, in her sorrows and joys? Do I see as something of my own, something very personal, all that befalls her? Do I realize my responsibility to do apostolate and proselytism, in order to see an increase each day in the number of those who want to love God with their whole heart and work for the Church with all their strength? Am I aware of the help I can and should offer the Mystical Body with my prayer and mortification, fulfilling faithfully, with love and for love, my daily duties? Do I realize that, at every moment, the Church needs me? Those who know me, can they define me as a faithful son or daughter of this Holy Mother, because of my effort to give testimony to and put into practice my faith?” (Letter, November 1988).