By JAMES MONTI
It was shortly after our Lord had begun His public ministry with the miracle of Cana that going up to Jerusalem He entered the Temple and drove out the moneychangers, at the sight of which His disciples recalled the words from Psalm 69, “zeal for thy house has consumed me” (Psalm 69:9, cited in John 2:17). What the apostles saw at that moment was a glimpse into the Heart of Christ, that “Burning Furnace of Charity” as we hail it in the Litany of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Our Lord was later to speak of holy zeal as a virtual definition of His mission in telling His disciples, “I came to cast fire upon the earth; and would that it were already kindled!” (Luke 12:49).
St. Thomas Aquinas describes zeal as “an effect of love” that “arises from the intensity of love” (St. Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologiae, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province, New York, Benziger Brothers, 1948, Pt. I-II, q. 28, article 4, volume 1, p. 712).
In our Lord this vehemence of love is directed toward the Father and toward us, impelling Him to the Cross: “I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how I am constrained until it is accomplished!” (Luke 12:50). As St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622) observes, “this Divine Lover died amongst the flames and ardors of love….He died in love, by love, for love, and of love” (A Treatise of the Love of God, Douai, France, Gerard Pinchon, 1630, book 10, chapter 17, p. 653).
Similarly, in the saints, this vehemence of love, this zeal, is directed toward God and the salvation of souls, as St. Paul declares: “For the charity of Christ presseth us” (2 Cor. 5:14 — Douai-Reims translation).
What has perhaps escaped our notice is that zeal is manifest in the recorded words and actions of the Queen of Saints, our Lady. Is there not a vehement, passionate pledge of total and limitless self-donation in Mary’s answer to the Angel Gabriel, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38)?
Immediately afterward she acts with vehemence, for St. Luke tells us that in journeying to visit Elizabeth she went “with haste” (Luke 1:39), the ardor of her love, the zeal in her pure heart, quickening her steps, eager to accomplish the designs of God for her. The words of her Magnificat are a fiery outpouring of gratitude to God, of exultation in His goodness, His mercy, and His justice.
In his classic of the spiritual life Transformation in Christ, Dietrich von Hildebrand (1889-1977) explains that zeal is an indispensable requirement of true discipleship:
“Our search for the kingdom of God and His justice must be the consuming passion of our souls. The empire of Christ over our souls, as well as in all other souls, must become the paramount theme of our lives. Day and night we must be swayed by the burning desire that God be glorified in all things” (Transformation in Christ, Manchester, NH, Sophia Institute Press, 1998, p. 307).
In the descent of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost can be seen the fulfillment of our Lord’s desire “to cast fire upon the Earth,” for immediately upon receiving the Holy Spirit the apostles unlocked the doors of the Upper Room and went out to begin preaching the Gospel, converting three thousand on that very first day of the Church’s evangelization of the world.
Across the centuries since, holy zeal has been a driving force of the Church, sending cathedral vaults and spires skyward and missionaries to the ends of the Earth.
Describing zeal as “love in action” in an essay on the subject for the 1907 Catholic Encyclopedia, Sydney Smith after citing the example of St. Paul observes:
“. . . It is a zeal of like nature which, enkindled in the breasts of so many generations of ardent followers of Christ, has in its cooperation with the lavish gifts of the Holy Spirit, built that Church up into the greatest marvel of human history. For it is the zeal of all those devout souls which, as distinguished from the lukewarmness of the ordinary Christian, has sent forth the Apostles and missionaries to their lives of self-sacrifice, has filled the sanctuaries with an unfailing supply of good priests and the cloisters with throngs of fervent religious, which has organized, sustained, and developed so splendid an array of works of charity to meet almost every conceivable need of suffering humanity” (Sydney Smith, “Zeal,” Catholic Encyclopedia, 1907, volume 15, p. 753).
Zeal impels us to act energetically; it gives us the courage to do what we would otherwise be too afraid to do. Zeal is the very “stuff” of which saints are made. Their lives on Earth were marked by an “ardor for the cause of God that knows no defeat” because they were “devoured with zeal for the honor of God and filled with an unquenchable thirst to win men’s souls for God” (Von Hildebrand, Transformation in Christ, pp. 307, 308).
It is zeal that for centuries has given men and women of faith the fortitude to leave all the world has to offer and spend the rest of their lives behind cloister walls totally devoted to the glorification of God and supplication for the living and the dead: “. . . As we progress in our monastic life and in faith, our hearts shall be enlarged, and we shall run with unspeakable sweetness of love in the way of God’s commandments” (The Rule of St. Benedict, ed. Abbot Justin McCann, London, Burns and Oates, 1952, p. 13).
It has been zeal that has given the martyrs the fortitude to brave a virtual Hell on Earth for a heavenly cause, “Of worldly substances friends, liberty, life, and all, to set the loss at right naught, for the winning of Christ,” as St. Thomas More put it (“A Godly Meditation,” in The Workes of Sir Thomas More Knyght, sometyme Lorde Chauncellour of England, wrytten by Him in the Englysh Tonge, ed. William Rastell, London, 1557, p. 1417).
It was zeal for souls that prompted the Jesuit North American martyr St. Isaac Jogues (1607-1646) to describe the Iroquois people who had tortured him and to whom he was returning as his “spouse of blood” (letter of September 1646, in Fr. Francis Talbot, SJ, Saint Among Savages: The Life of Saint Isaac Jogues, San Francisco, Ignatius Press, 2002, p. 412). And it was zeal for the Catholic faith that inspired the martyrs of Mexico and the martyrs of the Spanish Civil War to die with the acclamation, “Viva Cristo Rey!” (“Long live Christ the King!”), on their lips.
It was zeal for the cause of God that impelled the thirteenth-century French king St. Louis (1214-1270) to disregard his high rank and, heedless of imminent danger, attempt to lead the charge in landing on the Egyptian coast to begin the Sixth Crusade (1248):
“When the King heard that the ensign of St. Denis was ashore he strode across the galley….and leapt into the water, which came up to his armpits. His shield round his neck, his helmet on his head, lance in hand, he joined his men on the beach” (John of Joinville, The Life of St. Louis, New York, Sheed and Ward, 1955, volume 1, chapter 35, n. 162, p. 64).
In his Treatise of the Love of God, St. Francis de Sales describes zeal as “love in its ardor, or rather the ardor that is in love” (A Treatise of the Love of God, book 10, chapter 12, p. 624). It is through books on the spiritual life that for centuries zeal for “the things that are above” (Col. 3:1) has been kindled in countless readers. The zeal of Francis himself can be felt in these impassioned lines that he penned in dedicating his Treatise to our Lady and St. Joseph:
“O Mary and Joseph, pair without compare! Sacred lilies of incomparable beauty, amongst which the Well-beloved feeds Himself and his lovers: alas if I might give myself hope, that this love-letter might inflame and lighten the children of light, where might I better place it, than amongst your lilies, lilies where the Son of Justice, the splendor and candor of the eternal Light, did so sovereignly recreate Himself, that He there practiced the delights of the ineffable love of His Heart towards us? O well-beloved Mother of the Well-beloved! Prone, laid at thy sacred feet who bore my Savior, I vow, dedicate and consecrate this little work of love, to the immense greatness of thy love.
“Ah, I conjure thee by the Heart of thy sweet Jesus, King of hearts, whom thine adore, animate my heart, and all theirs who shall read this writing of thy all puissant savor, with the Holy Ghost, so that henceforth, we may offer up in holocaust all our affections to His Divine Goodness, to live, die, and revive forever in the flames of this heavenly fire, which our Savior thy Son hath so much labored to kindle in our hearts, that He never ceased to labor and travel therein, even unto death — and death on the Cross” (“Dedicatory Prayer,” A Treatise of the Love of God, sig. a7r-v).
Surviving The Present Crisis
Of course it should be said that there have always been counterfeit forms of zeal, misdirected zeal, immoderate zeal driven by imprudence, sinful anger or pride, but also zeal for an unworthy objective or motive.
Citing St. Benedict’s warning about the “evil zeal of bitterness” (The Rule of St. Benedict, chapter 72, p. 159), Dietrich von Hildebrand notes of the latter that “even in the holy Church we find this evil zeal at a high pitch among those who want to destroy the Church” (The Devastated Vineyard, Harrison, NY, Roman Catholic Books, 1985, p. 229).
Yet what von Hildebrand sees as particularly worrisome in the modern age is the decline of genuine zeal to the point of it being vilified: “burning zeal for the truth, for Christ and His holy Church, is looked on as fanatical, intolerant, and incompatible with charity” (The Devastated Vineyard, 1985 ed., p. 229).
There is nothing fanatical about loving God with all our hearts, about wanting His greater glory and the salvation of souls, about seeking the triumph of truth over falsehood.
It is precisely through a rekindling of genuine zeal in our hearts that we will survive and overcome the present crisis in the Church. It is our passionate answer to our Lord’s haunting question, “…do you love me?” (John 21: 17), an answer worth living and dying for.
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