[00:00] "Jesus Christ was in the world. He came into the world, and His own did not accept Him. But to those who did accept our Lord, He gave them the power to become children of God." We, through baptism, have accepted the word of God. We have accepted that life, and not

[00:34] just the life of the power that our Lord gives us to be children of God, but that life principle which leads us to live as children of God. We are in preparation for Pentecost, for the coming of the Holy Spirit. It is the same Spirit that gave the apostles the strength to be unafraid when, before, they were hiding and cowering in the upper room, afraid to show themselves because of what happened to our Lord.

[01:05] But through the Holy Spirit, they were given gifts beyond their human nature to match the grace and the life that God poured into their soul. And our Lord asked them to be imitators of Him. And primarily this means, in order to prepare for the Holy Spirit, it is for us to grow in charity. The highest virtue, the highest goal of the Christian life, of the whole Church itself,

[01:40] is to grow in charity. It is the highest virtue. Why? Because charity is the love of God, because charity is God, because God is love. St. Bonaventure, especially in the Franciscan order, we are called also the Seraphic order, because St. Francis of Assisi tried his best to imitate our Lord in His love, in His charity.

[02:11] And it is a principle of the Franciscan life that in growing in charity, you cast aside all hate. When I say cast aside, it's almost like you're looking at a cup, and you have a bunch of stuff in the cup. The more water you pour in it, let's say water is charity, eventually the only thing that's left in the cup, if you keep pouring water in, is water. So St. Bonaventure speaks of charity as a virtue that, if we strive for it, it will push

[02:47] anything else away, meaning any vices, anything that does not correspond to that love of God which we are aiming for. St. Augustine said, "Love God and then do whatever you want," because anyone who authentically loves God, just like someone who loves another person, is not going to want to offend them, and they're going to be more attuned to the things that may offend that person. There's some words of St. Bonaventure here that I'd like to pass on.

[03:25] St. Bonaventure says, the love of God is encapsulated, and in imitation of that love that Jesus had for us in this passage, "You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, with your whole mind, and your whole soul." And what does it mean to love our Lord, our God, with our whole mind, our whole heart, and our whole soul? First of all, to love God with our whole mind is to keep Him in mind.

[04:00] It is to seek the truth. It is to be contemplative, meaning we have to try the best we can to make God, as far as in our mind and our thoughts, like the air we breathe. We don't have to think about the air we breathe because of the fact that it's just natural. If you tried to hold your breath, it only takes 20, 30 seconds for you to realize how important the breath is. But if we want to follow our Lord and live the life of virtue, especially the virtue

[04:35] of charity, then we have to try our best to always have that mindset. We have to get to the point where if someone asks you, "How often do you think about God?" And you can think, "I don't know, I don't think I go a minute, not probably a minute, two minutes of the day without thinking about God, whether it's a thought of pleasing God,

[05:05] whether it's asking myself, what does God want me to do?" Or if I do something wrong, then I'm automatically thinking, "Okay, that's not right. My conscience convicts me of God." So when we love God with our whole mind, our whole heart, our whole soul, first of all, the mind, we try to keep Him in mind. Then our heart, our heart is not to be divided. We have to strive with our heart, which is the seedbed of the will, to choose those things

[05:37] that we know are of God and to ask Him to give us the grace to see that. To love God with our whole soul, the soul is our life. So we are willing to even offer our life to sacrifice for God. We love our Lord with our whole mind, our whole soul, our whole heart, when we choose Him above all other things.

[06:07] And it may seem like, "Okay, it's hard to do," but our Lord himself will give us that grace. So St. Bonaventure speaks of it. He said, "To love God with your whole heart means that your heart is undivided, loving nothing more than God, and you find no greater delight than in the goods of earth and honors, or even in family.

[06:39] You must love the Lord Jesus Christ not only with your whole heart, but also with your whole soul." St. Augustine says to love God with your whole soul means that you love Him with all your will, without any reservation, and you're willing to sacrifice the ultimate sacrifice, which is exposing yourself to death, if need be, for the love of Jesus Christ and His truth. And then we can turn to these words of St. Francis, because St. Bonaventure is Franciscan.

[07:16] So what he would say on love must be also reflected in the words of St. Francis, and I'll read this because St. Francis actually exhorts it to anyone who would, this letter would reach. He says, "Since I am the servant of all, I am obliged to serve all and carry out the fragrant words of my Lord, the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the word of the

[07:48] Father. I must also bring to your attention the words of the Holy Spirit, which are spirit and life." And in this, St. Francis speaks of preparing for the Holy Spirit and that charity, that virtue which I was talking about, and the desire to love God with your whole mind, your whole heart, your whole soul, is the preparation and the condition for receiving the Holy Spirit. And to the degree that we strive for that love, will be the degree that we are filled

[08:18] with the Holy Spirit, and that the Holy Spirit can change our lives and make us like the apostles, willing to do whatever it takes to testify in our lives to the truth of the Gospel. "Although all the world's riches were His, Christ and His blessed Mother chose poverty. He subjected His will to the will of the Father, saying, 'Father, your will be done, not as I will, but as you will.'

[08:50] Now this is the will of His Father, that His blessed Son, whom He gave us and who was born for us, should offer Himself by shedding His blood as a sacrifice and victim on the altar of the cross. This sacrifice was not for Himself, through whom all things were made, but for our sins, thus leaving us an example that we should follow in His footsteps. He wants us all to be saved through Him and to receive Him with pure heart and sinless body. How happy and blessed are they who love the Lord and do what He says in the Gospel, 'You

[09:25] shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart and your whole soul and your neighbor as yourself.' Let us therefore love God and adore Him with pure heart and soul, since He says that He is specially seeking authentic worshipers who will worship the Father in spirit and truth. Let us sing His praises and pray day and night, because we must pray always without losing heart. We must also fast and abstain," and He goes on to say, you know, the different penances,

[09:58] but basically He's just talking about almost like what we spoke about during Lent, doing penances and everything. It's part of St. Francis who's big on, if we're offering God our life, then we do so especially by a little mortification, a mortification to mortify means to put to death, because you're not experiencing death, but in a way you're choosing those things that are geared to preparing yourself for the ultimate sacrifice, which whether we sacrifice it by them hanging

[10:35] us by the lampposts or taking us to the Coliseum, or whether we just die in our sleep in old age, we're still making that sacrifice of God or of ourselves. And this is the big one. "We must love our enemies and do good to those who hate us." We must love even those who we know will not return our love, who will even mock us, who

[11:08] will turn their backs on us, those who maybe even should be showing love to us, but we know that they will not, or we love them anyways, forgiving them and doing good to those who hate us. "We are to observe the commandments and counsels of our Lord Jesus Christ. We must also deny ourselves and submit our bodies to the yoke of service and of holy obedience, just as each one promised the Lord.

[11:41] We are not to be wise and prudent according to the flesh, but rather simple and humble and pure of heart. We must never wish to lord it over others, but must rather seek to be servants and subject to every human being, for God's sake. The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon all who have done this and persevered till the end, and the Spirit will make His dwelling place in them, and they shall be

[12:13] children of their Father in heaven, whose works they do, and they are spouses, brothers and mothers of our Lord Jesus Christ. I, friar Francis, your least servant by the love that is God, beg and implore all whom this letter may reach to receive these words of our Lord Jesus Christ with humility and love, and to fulfill them in love and observe them to the letter. May the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit bless all who accept them with love and understand

[12:47] them and persevere to the end in putting them into practice." Let us apply our minds, our hearts, and our souls to the things that we know that God wants of us and seek Him above all things, seek His kingdom, and then all other things will be given to us besides, because there's nothing greater in this life than to choose God and His holy will, and to strive after that happiness that will never end, which

[13:20] will be our happiness with the blessed and in the vision of God, where no eye has seen, no ear has heard, nor has it entered into the mind of man, what God has in store for those who love Him.