Pope John Paul I to St. Therese, the Little Flower

The Following are excerpts from John Paul I's letter to the Little Flower. This letter, in it's full text can be found in the book Illustrisimi:

"...What strikes me the most is the way in which you loved God and your neighbor. St. Augustine wrote: 'We reach God, not by walking but through love.' You also called your road 'the way of love'. Christ said: 'No one comes to me unless my Father calls him.' You were perfectly in tune with these words feeling 'like a bird without strength and without wings', and seeing in God an eagle who came down to carry you off on high, on its wings.'

To the merciful God you offered yourself as a victim. All this did not prevent you from enjoying what was good and beautiful. Before your final illness you loved painting, and wrote poetry and short plays on religious subjects, taking some of the parts yourself and showing quite a talent for acting. In the last stage of your illness when you felt briefly better, you asked for some chocolates. You had no fear of your own imperfections, not even of having sometimes slept during meditation, out of
weariness ('mothers love their children, even when they are asleep).

In Donizzetti's l'Elisir d' amore the 'secret tears' Adina weeks are enough to make her lover Nemorino feel reassured and happy. God does not want merely secret tears. He likes external tears so long as they match a decision we have made, a decision of the will. It is the same with outward good works: they please him only if they correspond with an inner love. Religious fasting had actually made the Pharisees' faces thin, but these thin faces did not appeal to Christ because the Pharisees' hearts were a long way from God. You, dear Theresa, wrote: 'Love should lie not in feelings, but in works.' Yet you added: 'God does not need our works, only our love.' Perfect!

We may love all kinds of other fine things, so long as nothing we love is against, or above, or in the same measure as God. In other words, the love of God should not be exclusive, it should suffuse the rest of life.

Seeking the face of Christ in our neighbor is the only way of making sure that we really love everyone, overcoming dislikes and ideologies, and mere philanthropic feelings.