The jealousy of God resembles human jealousy in that both will resist and oppose a rival. But there is also an immense difference between the two. Human love is selfish; it is jealous because it is aware that it is limited in quantity. Hence it claims all for itself and is dissatisfied if the person loved shows attention to another.
The jealousy of God is not only willing but eager that divine love should be spread abroad throughout the whole world. It would, indeed, embrace all men of all races and climes. If a man who loves Christ ardently goes forth and shares his treasure with others, the jealousy of God need not dissuade, but, on the contrary, spur him on to greater effort. A usurper divine jealousy will not and cannot tolerate; no creature should be enthroned in the heart to the displacement of God. But, because divine love is infinite, unlike human love, it can be shared indefinitely, and the love we give to creatures should simply lead them and us to a greater love of the Creator.
Human love has to be rationed because it is limited. Divine love is without measure and can therefore be poured out without restraint on the entire human race. "If any man thirst," says Our Lord, "let him come to Me and drink." Hence the tireless efforts of saintly men to win the whole world to Christ; hence their anxiety about each single individual person; hence the selfforgetting devotedness they lavished on any who would have them. A man who loves his wife is rightly resentful if she show to another the love due to him; a man who loves God finds God in every human being and loves him for that very reason. In this case human love does not dispute the place of divine love; rather does the love shown to mankind give expression to, and complement, the love given to God.
God is not jealous after the manner of a miser counting out his coins. Our Lord has stored up, in the great reservoir on Calvary, the "unsearchable riches of Christ," and, if the whole world were to come and draw, there would still be an infinite amount left. But the jealousy of God is akin rather to a great pity that is made sorrowful when men's souls, created for God, try to content themselves with husks of swine.
The whole work of the zealous Catholic is, first, himself to throw away the husks and seek to feed his soul only on divine love, and then to persuade as many as possible to do the same.
If this be the glory and the joy of a friend of Christ, if this win from Him an abundance of blessings, He does not fail to add the frightful responsibility incurred by the person who leads another astray. This is the sin of scandal, of tempting another to sin, condoning sin in oneself or another, laughing away another's scruples, speaking or acting in a manner that induces another to follow one's evil example. God, Who is jealous of souls, is incensed against such, who ruin the work His Heart is set upon, who persuade others or try to persuade them to cast Him down and set up the intruder in their hearts. It were better for such a man that a millstone were hung about his neck and that he were buried in the depths of the sea.
My God, give me a deep reverence for the souls so precious in Your sight. Never permit me to be guilty of the insolence of leading them away from You; rather, make me an apostle, my zeal enkindled and sustained by a living understanding of the beauty and sacredness and destiny of the soul of every person with whom I make contact.