Meditation for December 3, My Role in the World's Salvation

Today is the feast of St. Francis Xaxier, the great apostle of foreign missions. What enthusiasm is awakened in me by the very thought of the spiritual giants who go to the outposts of Christendom to carry the Gospel to poor pagans! Should my vocation call me to share their labors, God be praised! If it requires me to sanctify myself in my own country, [once] Chris­tianized, it shall be my aim to sacrifice nothing of my apostolic ardor.

There are many ways of working for the redemption of the world. The first and most valuable way is the sanctification of self in my own sphere of activity.

If we do not adequately understand the first lesson of the Cate­chism that we are created to praise, love and serve God and by this means save our soul, then we are robbing Christianity of its true significance. We are not on earth solely to work out our own salvation, but to effect simultaneously with our own, the salvation and sanctification of our brethren; we must save the greatest number possible of those who live with us upon the earth.

It is a serious error to suppose that every individual is respons1ble for himself alone. Quite the contrary, we are all bound to one another. If I sanctify myself, I aid in the sanctification of all; if I stray from the right path, I contribute to the general decline.

I will ask St. Francis to make me a true Christian, that I may never disassociate the thought of my own sanctification from the sanctification of the rest of the world.

"St. Francis Xavier, make me a Catholic soul, having a genuine instlnct and zest for the universality of the ambitions of Jesus Christ!"

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Adapted from Meditations for Religious
by Father Raoul Plus, S.J. (© 1939, Frederick Pustet Co.)