Here We Begin to Declare in Particular What It Is That Union and Fraternal Charity Requires of Us, and What Will Help Us to Keep It

IHARITY is patient and kind, charity envieth none, worketh no evil, is not puffed up, seeketh not her own interest (I Cor. xiii. 4). Union and fraternal charity requires the exercise of all the virtues; for what hinders and makes war on it is envy, ambition, impatience, selflove, want of mortification, and the like. Thus, to preserve it in us, there is needed the exercise of the contrary virtues. That is what St. Paul teaches us in these words, and so the only thing needed will be to declare them further. Charity is patient, charity is kind. These two things, to suffer and to do good to all, are very important and necessary to preserve this mutual union and charity. For as we are men and full of defects and imperfections, we all give occasion enough for others to suffer at our hands; and as on the other hand we are so weak and so needy, we need others to help us and do us good. And so the Apostle says that in this way charity will be preserved and the commandment of Christ accomplished by our aiding one another and overlooking one another’s failings. Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so ye shall fulfil the law of Christ (Gal. vi. 2). St. Augustine on these words makes a good comparison to this purpose. Naturalists write, he says, that stags, when they want to swim across a river or an arm of the sea, to go in search of pasture on some island, dispose and arrange themselves in this way. Since their heads are so heavy by reason of their horns, they all draw up in single file and each one to lighten his fatigue rests his head on the haunches of him before him, and so they help one another. Thus they are all eased by resting their heads on someone else. Only the first stag has his head in the air, suffering this fatigue to lighten that of his companions. And that he may not be so very much fatigued either, when he gets tired, he drops from first to last and the one behind him takes his duty for another little while, and so they go on changing until they reach the shore. In this way we must aid and succor one another; each must make it his aim to ease another’s burden and lighten his fatigue so far as is possible. This is what charity requires; and to withdraw one’s own person from fatigue and leave the burden to another shows a want of charity. The more you do, the more you merit; you are really doing something for yourself.

St. Augustine says there that one of the things in which charity is proved and becomes most apparent is in suffering and bearing the ill humors and imperfections of our neighbors. Supporting one another in charity, solicitous to preserve the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace (Eph. iv. 2-3). Charity suffereth all, and taketh all upon herself (I Cor. xiii. 7) and thereby is preserved. If you do not know how to suffer and have patience with and support your brethren, be sure that your charity cannot last, for all your multiplied considerations and methods and remedies. If natural love and fleshly love suffer the importunate demands of a sick man, as we see in the case of a mother attending her son or husband in sickness, more reason is there that the spiritual love of charity should be able to suffer and support the importunities and weaknesses of our brethren. And remember, says St. Augustine, that this office and exercise of charity is not to last forever, for in the other life there will be no occasion of suffering or overlooking the failings of our brethren; therefore let us suffer them and overlook their failings in this life, to deserve to gain the life that is everlasting. Let us not consider the lengthening out of time, for the work after all will last but a short time and the reward we shall receive will last forever. So important are these two things, to suffer and to succor our brethren, and aid them and do them good, that St. Augustine goes so far as to say that Christian life is summed up in these two things; and with reason, since Christian life exists by charity, and in this is included all the law, as Christ our Redeemer says (Matt. xxii. 5); and so what sums up charity, sums up Christian life.

Again, the Apostle St. Paul says: Charity is not puffed up nor proud. Love and friendship knows no such thing as pride and haughtiness; rather they cause a great equality among those who love one another. Hence the saying of the Wise Man: I will not be ashamed of saluting a friend (Ecclus. xxii. 31). With a friend we keep no ceremonies; we stand on no points of honor—friend does not look at friend to see whether he is the first to show courtesy. No one is ashamed of doing honor and an act of courtesy to a friend, and doing it first, because among friends there is great equality and straightforwardness; love knows nothing of these precedences. And so Aristotle said that friendship must be among equals. And another said: “Majesty and love go not well together”—Non bene conveniunt nec in una sede morantur maiestas et amor.

To sit on a throne and wield great authority, that is not eompatible with friendship. You have to abase yourself and humble yourself and put yourself on an equality with your friend if you are to have true friendship, for a friend is a second self.

Even in God the love that He bore to men had such power as to make Him abase Himself and put Himself on an equality with them. Thou hast made him a little less than the angels (Psalm viii. 6). Thou hast made Him man as we are; and so He says to us: I will not now call you servants, but friends (John xv. 15), which implies some manner of equality. See the tenderness of the love of Christ! Even here we do not say: “So-and-So is a friend of the king,” though he be a great personage, a marquis or a duke; but ‘‘So-and-So is very intimate with the king,” since to say “friend” implies a sort of equality. A God of infinite majesty has been pleased to make Himself so thoroughly man amongst men and has loved us so much, that He calls us not “servants,” but “friends” in so many words. So here in religion charity has no idea of anything like haughtiness, but must needs cause a great equality and straightforwardness amongst all. This same equality, which is an effect of love, helps much to preserve and augment charity and union. One helps the other, and hence it is that where there is humility and straightforwardness among all, it is a sign of great union and brotherly affection. And so we see by the goodness of the Lord in the Society that as charity shines forth, so also there shines forth this equality and straightforwardness amongst all, “everyone desiring and seeking to yield the preference to — others, esteeming all in his heart as if they were better men than himself” (Rule 29). And he who was somebody in the world feels more honored and rejoices more, as St. Augustine says, in the company of his poor brothers than in the dignity and nobility of his wealthy parents, for what he values and esteems is virtue, and all the rest he counts for nothing.

St. Ambrose observes very well what a help this is to the preservation of charity. These are his words: “It goes a long way towards strengthening charity, when, according to the Apostle’s teaching (Rom. xii. 10), men try to gain ground on one another, who shall get the start at honoring one another and giving another the advantage; when one man takes every other man for his superior; when subjects love to serve and superiors know not what it is to be haughty; when the poor man makes no difficulty of the rich being preferred before him and the rich man delights in putting the poor on a level with himself; when men of rank are not proud of their quality and lineage and men of meaner origin do not vaunt themselves on being men as much as the noble; lastly, when not more deference is paid to great wealth than to good character, nor do the power and decorations of the unjust go for more than the unhonored honesty of the upright.”