If we wish to achieve the same results as the Apostles and the first followers of the Gospel, we must use the same means as they…
Letter to M. Arbaud, Vicar General of Digne, January 1819, O.W. XIII n.22
The “same means” meant that they were active and made things happen. The apostles did not sit back and wait for the world to come to them.
They lived as a dynamic community in relationship with each other and actively seeking the presence of Jesus who united them.
With Jesus, and like Jesus, they went out in search of “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” and their concern for the welfare of people extended to “the ends of the earth.”
“If we wish to achieve the same results as the Apostles and the first followers of the Gospel, we must use the same means as they…” This is exactly the same spirit and activity of the Missionaries of Provence:
Our Lord Jesus Christ has left to us the task of continuing the great work of the redemption of mankind.
It is towards this unique end that all our efforts must tend;
as long as we will not have spent our whole life and given all our blood to achieve this, we having nothing to say;
especially when as yet we have given only a few drops of sweat and a few spells of fatigue.
Letter to Henri Tempier, 22 August 1817, O.W. VI n. 21
Apathy can be overcome by enthusiasm, and enthusiasm can only be aroused by two things: first, an ideal, with takes the imagination by storm, and second, a definite intelligible plan for carrying that ideal into practice. Arnold J. Toynbee