This is an amazing little excerpt from the book Letters From The Desert by Carlo Carretto. 

Carretto says,

“LIVE LOVE, let love invade you. It will never fail to teach you what you must do.

The truth we must learn through faith: to wait on God. And this attitude of mind is not easy. This “waiting,” this “not making plans,” this “searching the heavens,” this “being silent” is one of the most important things we have to learn.

The moment will then follow when we are called, when we must speak out, when our hands will have grown tired from baptizing” the moment of harvest. But even then we will be blind if we think of ourselves as the sole agents in bringing it about. The extraordinary thing is that God uses us, who are so insignificant and unworthy.

I didn’t wan to reach this point, because thereis a question i loathe to tackle. Even to ask the question seems impertinent, and lacking in faith.

“Pray or act? Stay or opt out? Go out into the world or use the Church as a refuge?” And there we are at the beginning again, where man persists in posing irrelevant questions. His hankering curiosity is so much stronger than his desire to obey God.

But now i’m tired of arguing. I don’t want to go on disputing any more. My belief in the ability to convince by words alone has gone.

I am silent under these African stars, and i prefer to worship my God and Savior.

But i must react in some way to the insistence of the young people who haven written to me here; they do put their finger on an important point, and what is more, they have suffered. I can reply only that in the world everything is problematic except one thing: charity, love. Love alone is not a problem for him who lives it.

I can only say, “Live love, let love invade you. It will never fail to teach you what you must do.”

Charity, which is God in us, will point to the way ahead. It will say to you “Now kneel,” or “Now leave.”

It is love which gives things their value. It makes sense of the difficulty of spending hours and hours on one’s knees praying while so many need looking after in the world; and in the context of love we must view our inability to change the world, to wipe out evil and suffering.

It is love which must determine one’s actions, love which must give unity to what is divided.

Love is the synthesis of contemplation and action, the meeting-point between heaven and earth, between God and humanity.

I have known the satisfaction of unrestrained action, and the joy of contemplative life in the dazzling peace of the desert, and I repeat again St. Augustine’s words: “Love and do as you will.” Don’t worry about what you ought to do. Worry about loving. Don’t interrogate heaven repeatedly and uselessly saying, “ What course of action should i pursue?” Concentrate on loving instead.

And by loving you will find out what is for you. Loving, you will listen to the Voice. Loving, you will find peace.

Love is the fulfillment of the law and should be everyone’s rule of life; in the end love is the solution to every problem, the motive for all good. “Love and do as you will.”