III — THE EXTENT OF FRATERNAL CHARITY

Presence of God. — O Lord, make me understand that true charity admits no exceptions, but embraces every neighbor with sincere love.

Meditation

1 — If charity were based on the neighbor’s qualities, merits, value; if it were based on the comfort and benefits we receive from him, it would truly be impossible to extend it to all men. But since it is founded on the neighbor’s relation to God, no one can be lawfully excluded from it, for all belong to God, all are in fact his creatures, and at least by vocation all are his children, redeemed by Christ’s Blood, called to live “in fellowship” with God (cf. 1 Jn. 1:3) through grace here on earth and the beatific vision in heaven. And even if some, through their malice, have made themselves unworthy of God’s grace, nevertheless, as long as they live, they remain capable of conversion and of being readmitted to the sweet intimacy of the heavenly Father.

In the Old Testament, where the great mystery of the communication of divine life to men had not yet been revealed, and Jesus had not yet come to establish the realization of these new relationships between God and men, the law of love of neighbor did not require this universal and profound embrace, of which the ancients would not have been capable. But from the moment Jesus came to tell us that God is our Father to the point of wanting to communicate his divine life to us, from the moment Jesus came to offer us the grace of adoption as children of God, the precept of charity acquired a new breadth. “You have heard that it was said: ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you,” proclaims Jesus, “love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who persecute and calumniate you, so that you may be children of your Father who is in heaven, who makes his sun rise on the good and the bad and sends rain on the just and the unjust” (Mt. 5:43-45). Here is how Jesus Himself declares the motive of universal charity: we must love all in order to be children of the heavenly Father, in order to imitate his universal love toward all men who are his creatures, chosen by Him as his adoptive children. Jesus too teaches us that we must love neighbor propter Deum, for God’s sake.

2 — Many times in practice we find the precept of universal charity difficult because we make love of neighbor an almost exclusively personal, subjective, and therefore egoistic matter. In other words, instead of making our love for neighbor depend on his relation to God, we make it depend on his relation to us. If neighbor loves us, respects us, holds us in due regard, renders us services, and so on, we find no difficulty in loving him; indeed, we take pleasure in this love and seek comfort in it. But quite another thing happens if neighbor is against us, if he jars us, if he causes us displeasures — even involuntarily — if he does not share our way of thinking, if he does not approve our conduct. Faced with all this we must admit that we err from the start by substituting for God, who is the true reason why we must love neighbor, our wretched self with its selfish demands. Also in the matter of love of neighbor we must recognize that, unfortunately, we are almost always egocentric and very little theocentric. If the center of our relations with neighbor were truly God, we would know how to overcome the egocentric, that is egoistic and personal, point of view, and though suffering from wrongs, discourtesies, and displeasures we may receive from neighbor, we would never take from that a motive to refuse him our love. At bottom, it is always egoism that leads us astray, and in this case it closes to us the road to the practice of theological charity.

Therefore we must conquer egoism and launch ourselves beyond the very limited horizons of a love based on our personal interests. Let us look higher, let us look at God, who repeats to us also, as to St. Catherine of Genoa: “He who loves me loves all that is loved by me.” If, because of the difficulties we encounter in our relations with neighbor, our charity comes to a stop, it means that what regulates our relations with our brethren is not love of God, but love of our own self.

Colloquy

“O Jesus, You know it: I do not find enemies around me, but I do find sympathies. I feel drawn toward one sister, while another would make me take a wide detour to avoid her. Well then, You tell me that I must love this sister and pray for her, even if from her manner I might understand that I am not in her good graces. ‘If you love those who love you, what merit will you have? Even sinners, in fact, love those who love them.’ And You also teach me that love is not enough, because love must be proved by works. To take pleasure in pleasing a friend is natural, but charity does not consist in that: sinners do it too.

“Here, then, is the conclusion You suggest to me: I must seek the company of the sisters I do not like by natural inclination, and toward them perform the office of the good Samaritan. Often one word and one kindly smile are enough to enlarge a sad and wounded soul! Yet, O Lord, You do not want me to be charitable only with the hope of consoling others; aiming only at that goal, I would soon become discouraged, because a word spoken with the best intention will perhaps be taken amiss. Therefore, in order not to lose either time or effort, You want me to strive to act solely to gladden You, O Jesus, and to answer your counsel: ‘When you give a banquet, do not invite relatives and friends, for fear that they in turn invite you and thus you receive your recompense.’

“O Jesus, what banquet can I ever offer my sisters if not a spiritual banquet made of cheerful and amiable charity? Teach me to imitate St. Paul, who rejoiced with those whom he found in joy. It is true that tears too will sometimes have to appear at the banquet I want to set, but with your help I will always try that tears be changed into laughter, since You love one who gives with joy” (St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus, Story of a Soul, 9 and 10).