[In the voice of God.]
The soul can therefore place neither laws nor limits to its love for me. But its love for its neighbor, on the contrary, is limited by certain conditions. The light of discretion (which proceeds from love) gives to the neighbor a conditioned love. Such a love, being ordered aright, does not cause the injury of sin to self in order to be useful to others. For, if one single sin were committed to save the whole world from hell, or to obtain one great virtue, the motive would not be a rightly ordered or discreet love, but rather indiscreet. For it is not lawful to perform even one act of great virtue and profit to others by means of the guilt of sin.
Holy discretion ordains that the soul should direct all its powers to my service with a manly zeal. It should love its neighbor with such devotion that it would lay down a thousand times, if it were possible, the life of its body for the salvation of souls. It should endure pains and torments so that its neighbor may have the life of grace, and give its temporal substance for the profit and relief of his body.
This is the supreme office of discretion, which proceeds from charity. So you see how discreetly every soul who wishes for grace should pay its debts. That is, it should love me with an infinite love and without measure. But it should love its neighbor with measure, with a restricted love, not doing itself the injury of sin in order to be useful to others.
This is St. Paul's counsel to you, when he says that charity ought to be concerned first with self, otherwise it will never be of perfect usefulness to others. And this is because, when perfection is not in the soul, everything the soul does for itself and for others is imperfect.
—St. Catherine of Sienna, Doctor of the Church
