dilatasti cor meum.[1] As the heart is dilated the love of God increases, and as it increases it dilates the heart still more.
But where the love of God is, there is the love of our brethren. Where a fountain is, there is a stream. As a stream flows from a fountain, so the love of God pours itself out in love to man. The stream proves the fountain to be there. Therefore S. John says, "We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren."[2] Our love to them proves our love to Him; and he that loves God abides in God, and has passed from death to life; for God is our eternal life, and He dwells in us even now. The continual exercise of brotherly love to all—to our flock, to our kindred, to our friends, and to our enemies—in all the extension of charity, is a discipline of perfection and of perseverance.
And this life of charity is more perfect in the proportion in which it exacts of us a mortification of self. But the sacerdotal or pastoral life is full of daily and hourly self-denial. We are called to die to ourselves, to our own wish and will and choice, and to be at the beck and bid of all, good and evil, reasonable and unreasonable, "becoming all things to all men, that I might save all."[3] It is a strange
