Opera Omnia

[DFin 67. 68. 71. 195. 197] WAY OF UNION
[DFin 31. 47. 79. 217] Glory to the Holy Spirit

1. He is God really: not an attribute or quality only. The Third Person of the Most Holy Trinity. Who proceeds from the Father and the Son.

2. What works are attributed to the Holy Spirit:
a) The Son has proposed his divine truths: the Holy Spirit keeps them, makes them understood and used.
b) The Son has obtained grace, by repurchasing it: the Holy Spirit applies it to us in sanctification, by communicating it to each one.

[DFin 80] 3. How to be disposed for the Holy Spirit:
through hatred for sin;
through the desire for grace and holiness;
through acts of faith, hope and charity.

The Militant Church

[DFin 14. 47. 109. 122. 124-131] 1. The Church is the society instituted by Our Lord Jesus Christ of those who profess the faith and observe the law and approach the Holy Sacraments in order to reach paradise under the government of the Pastors and especially of the Supreme Pontiff. It is visible, spiritual, supernatural, perfect, monarchical, wherein everything is subject to what is spiritual.

2. The Roman Church is that: one, holy, catholic, apostolic, which, with the authority of Jesus Christ, instructs, tends, governs; indefectibly and infallibly.

3. Our duties are: a) faith in her teachings; b) obedience to her laws; c) love for what she loves and is interested in.
No one can have God as Father unless he has the Church as mother.
Only in her is there salvation.

[DFin 95. 96. 109. 122. 124-131] The only Church
1. The Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ is his kingdom. It includes not only the militant, but also the souls in purgatory, and the triumphant church, that form the mystical body of Jesus Christ.

2. These three parts of the Church are intimately related with one another, attached as they are as members of the same body. The Church militant offers suffrages for the souls in purgatory and glorifies the Church triumphant; the souls in purgatory pray for the militant Church and honor the triumphant to which they aspire; the triumphant church loves, communicates, helps the souls in purgatory as well as the militant church.

3. Consequences: comfort in the struggle, seeing that we are members and how we are helped by the Communion of Saints, prayer and trust in difficulties; serene fidelity to Our Lord Jesus Christ, inasmuch as he who has legitimately struggled shall be crowned, bonum certamen certavi,¹ in spite of the devil, the world, the passions.

[DFin 109] The Pope
1. The Pope is the Vicar of Our Lord Jesus Christ and in his name defines the truth that we have to believe, establishes the laws, binds and loosens: Ubi Petrus ibi Ecclesia.²

2. The Pope is infallible; the Pope is the Shepherd of Shepherds; the Pope is the center of the spread of the Gospel in the world.

3. The powerful papacy: for the holiness of so many pontiffs; for being the center of

fatherhood and civilization of peoples; for the eminent qualities of intelligence and heart of many popes; because God protects, guides and defends.
To the Pope is owed: faith, obedience, love, cooperation.

[DFin 84. 137-143] Faith

1. Faith is the theological virtue infused by God that inclines man to firmly believe what God has revealed and what the Church proposes for belief: Sperandarum substantia rerum, argumentum non apparentium.³

2. It is the foundation of every justification; the positive foundation of every virtue; the principle of Christian life; the door to the sacraments. The measure of faith is the measure of the other virtues. Iustus meus ex fide vivit.⁴ Sine fide impossibile est placere Deo.⁵ Jesus Christ said: Credite in Deum et in me credite.⁶ Faith is: not a reasoning, but a grace! It is to believe after the authority of the revealing God and on the word of the Church who communicates to us the deposit Jesus Christ has had.

3. a) Faith can be made more alive through prayer and repeated acts; b) it is necessary to keep it safe from dangers like doubtful readings,

suspect conversations, etc.; c) avoid those sins opposed to faith, which are credulousness and infidelity.

[DFin 137-143] Hope
1. Hope is a supernatural virtue infused by God in our soul, with which we hope for Paradise and the means to arrive there. It is certainty, not a vague probability, as regards heaven as much as for the graces for getting there.

2. It is necessary by necessity of means and of precept; thereby, omitted also without any fault, one does not arrive in Paradise. It is good because it is based on the omnipotence, on the mercy, on the fidelity of God: hence always certain as much for the just as for the sinner. Prayers are precisely efficacious because they are founded on the merits of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

3. a) we have to hold it as the most gentle comfort and the strongest support in life; b) we have to ask for it insistently because it is theological and supernatural; c) avoid sins opposed to it as presumption and despair.

[DFin 137-143. 218] Charity
1. Charity is the third theological virtue; infused by God in our soul. It forms two

flames: one directed towards God, love of God; the other directed towards neighbor, love of neighbor. It is benevolence, that is, to desire what is good. Hence, it is: rejoicing over the good that God and neighbor already possess; it is the desire for what they still do not possess.

2. Now there are three virtues: faith, hope, charity: the greatest is charity. Charity alone is eternal and heaven is the loving enjoyment of the object achieved. It is necessary in order that every good work may have merit; rather it is itself the urge for the last end. Then, one who does not love his neighbor, who is God's image, cannot love God himself. God shall measure with such measure the merit or the demerit at the final judgment. For him who is called to a special vocation, it is also a specific obligation.

3. 1. Charity is asked from the Lord; 2. it is exercised in the fervor of Communion, Visit, Mass and in the works of mercy, either spiritual or corporal; 3. it becomes more strongly lit by flight from venial sin and by delicateness of conscience.