The great cure-all

When you don’t live with Christ, you live in melancholy, sadness, stress and worry; you don’t live properly. Then all sorts of things go wrong with your system. The body’s out of sorts, the endocrinal glands, the gall bladder, the pancreas and the stomach.

People tell you: ‘If you want to be healthy, drink milk in the morning, with an egg, butter and toast’. But if you live properly, if you love Christ, you’ll be fine with an apple and an orange. The best cure-all is for us to devote ourselves to the worship of Christ. Then everything’s healed.  Everything functions normally. Love for God alters everything, transforms it, sanctifies it, rectifies it, changes it and transmutes it.

Ardor for Christ is something else. It has no end, no saturation point. It gives life, it gives resilience, it gives health, it gives and gives and gives…  . And the more it gives, the more ardent people want to become. But human love can wear people down; it can drive them mad. When you love Christ, all other loves give way. Other loves have a saturation point, but love for Christ doesn’t. Carnal love can be satisfied. But it can be followed by jealousy, nagging and even murder. It can be transformed into hatred. Love in Christ doesn’t alter. Worldly love lasts a short time, then gradually fades, whereas divine love keeps increasing and deepening. Any other kind of love can bring people to despair. Divine ardor, however, elevates us into the realm of God and grants us serenity, joy and fulfilment. Sensual pleasures pall, but this love is never sated. It’s an insatiable pleasure, which we never tire of. It’s the ultimate good.