The banner of love

“Which is stronger: fire or water?” the Poor One asked. The other answered: “fire!” Because fire razes, burns, ignites, and nothing in its path is saved. However, if you test these two elements in battle, you will see that water triumphs over fire, peace over war, and pardon over vengeance. The vestments that will gird the Messiah are meekness, patience, humility; and these three, in turn, weave only one garment: fortitude.

Our days are numbered, but the days of the Father are eternal; therefore, He is in no hurry. With infinite patience, He accomplishes much more than our thunderbolts of wrath. At the root of this, there is a tremendous error: we want to set in motion the machinery of fury, shouting: we raze the ground; we root out evil, eliminating the evildoers.

Ultimately, there is only one thing: the inability to love. For that reason, we quickly resort to anathema and sacred indignation because of our inability to love which would conquer evil with good. What merit is there in loving the loveable? If we are not able to oppose evil with good, what is our merit and our reason to be? The Father has commissioned me to start the engines of the machinery of goodness throughout the earth, and to plant the banner of love on top of the world. He ended by telling me that the world can be saved only by a deluge of love.”

From the book The Poor One of Nazaret by Fr. Ignacio Larrañaga