[35] Do you not say, 'In four months the harvest will be here'? I tell you, look up and see the fields ripe for the harvest. [36] The reaper is already receiving his payment and gathering crops for eternal life, so that the sower and reaper can rejoice together.
(CCC 54) "God, who creates and conserves all things by his Word, provides men with constant evidence of himself in created realities. And furthermore, wishing to open up the way to heavenly salvation, he manifested himself to our first parents from the very beginning" (DV 3; cf. Jn 1:3; Rom 1:19-20). He invited them to intimate communion with himself and clothed them with resplendent grace and justice. (CCC 90) The mutual connections between dogmas, and their coherence, can be found in the whole of the Revelation of the mystery of Christ (Cf. Vatican Council I: DS 3016: nexus mysteriorum; LG 25). "In Catholic doctrine there exists an order or hierarchy of truths, since they vary in their relation to the foundation of the Christian faith" (UR 11). (CCC 826) Charity is the soul of the holiness to which all are called: it "governs, shapes, and perfects all the means of sanctification" (LG 42). If the Church was a body composed of different members, it couldn't lack the noblest of all; it must have a Heart, and a Heart burning with love. And I realized that this love alone was the true motive force which enabled the other members of the Church to act; if it ceased to function, the Apostles would forget to preach the gospel, the Martyrs would refuse to shed their blood: love, in fact, is the vocation which includes all others; it's a universe of its own, comprising all time and space - it's eternal! [St. Therese of Lisieux, Autobiography of a Saint, tr. Ronald Knox (London: Harvill, 1958) 235].
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