6604 Duty to help in case of danger to fellow human beings....

July 24, 1956: Book 71

Each of you is obliged to save your neighbour if he is in danger, to help him so that he can escape this danger.... This is dictated by neighbourly love, even though you cannot be forced to provide such help; but one day you will have to answer to God if you have neglected to do so. For you are all children of one father, and if you love the father you must also love one another.... Love, however, ensures protection and shelter for the neighbour, and love always finds a way out, a means to avert the danger, for love is divine radiance and God truly knows how help can be given, and God's radiance of love also transfers this knowledge to the person who wants to help.... For the most part, however, people live next to each other in complete indifference to the fate of the other. And the commandment of neighbourly love is an empty concept to them. The need and danger of their fellow human beings do not touch them, and the will to help has sunk to a minimum.... because people are without love. Voluntary works of love alone are richly blessed for eternity.... If they are omitted, spiritual wealth will also fail and people will be poor and of dark spirit. If, however, the person next to you is obviously in danger and you pass by this emergency impassively, then you have incurred a grave sin and not merely omitted a work of love, for this omission will be reckoned to you as if you yourselves had put your fellow human being in danger. Whether it is a spiritual or an earthly danger which threatens your fellow human being, you are obliged to prevent this danger if this is within your power.... just as you are obliged to protect your fellow human being's life if it is in danger. If you only turn away unwillingly you will burden yourselves with an immense guilt for which you will have to answer and which you will also have to pay off and be grateful for if you are still given the opportunity to do so in earthly life.... Admittedly, the duty only ever exists towards God, for you cannot be forced by people into works of love. But what you only do because earthly power commands you to do so does not release you from your responsibility towards God and does not earn you any spiritual riches either.... But you yourselves would be happy to find a helper in the same danger and therefore you also know exactly how to appreciate the value of such help.... And if you fail then it is a sign of utmost unkindness, it is renewed evidence of your attitude which is still completely influenced by God's adversary. This is why you all have a certain obligation towards your neighbour when he is in danger.... And thus you will now also know that God will not condemn you if you take up arms in an emergency, as soon as you only want to avert a danger, as soon as you want to protect your neighbour if his life is threatened.... But only then do you act in a godly manner, but your motives must never lie in self-love.... The life of the individual human being should be sacred to all of you, for God gave it to you so that you might mature, so that you might regain perfection.... But where this life is in danger, man must take the side of the endangered person and try to preserve his life.... And then even an apparently evil deed will not be contrary to God's will....

Amen

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