FAUSTO GOMEZ OP
Love desires to wish good to another, to do good to another, to be good. It is “goodness giving itself away: to share itself with others; to give itself to them, and to make them happy” (Edith Stein). Love is the greatest human and Christian value and virtue: love as philia, or friendship (affective love), and as agape, or unconditional love, pure generosity (benevolent love), which includes love of enemies (cf. Lk 6:27-38) and, principally, love of the poor and needy (cf. Mt 25:31-46). In Christian tradition, love as charity –God’s love in us– is considered “the form” of all virtues, the one that gives life to all other virtues. Indeed, life is love, and to live is to love.
God is love. God One and Triune is divine love (1 Jn 4:8-16). Our love from God through Jesus in the Spirit is divine love, a share in God’s love. God is love – out of love He created us and out of love He became man in His Son, the Second Divine Person Jesus Christ, who died for us out of love, unconditional, agapeic love (Jn 15:13).
For St. Thomas, God’s charity is God’s friendship with us, and Christ’s charity is also best expressed by His friendship with humankind: with the shedding of His blood, Jesus regained divine grace and love for us.
What is divine love? In an illuminating conference, St. Thomas Aquinas explains briefly and clearly the nature and characteristics of the law of divine love (cf. The law of divine love is the standard for all human actions). By the hand of the Angelic Doctor, we meditate on this marvelous divine love, a law that is “known by everybody and no one may make recourse to ignorance to excuse himself or herself.”
The law of divine law should be the standard of all human actions. Thus, a human action is good if it conforms with the law of charity; if it does not, it is an evil action. The law of divine love is the most essential law of life. It accomplishes four marvelous things in the person who possesses love.
This law of divine love is “the cause of one’s personal spiritual life,” that is, of a grace-filled life led by the Spirit that makes us children of God, brothers and sisters of one another and partakers of the divinity of the Blessed Trinity. “Through charity, God lives in her [the soul].” Grace and love make us partakers of God’s divine nature (cf. 2 Pet 1:4).
Divine love “leads to the observance of the divine commandments”: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (Jn 14:15), the Ten Commandments, or rather the only commandment, the first being the most important and the following nine resulting from the first. Charity is the commandment. We never forget that Jesus joined inextricably the commandment of love of God and the commandment of love of neighbor, to the point that both form one commandment (cf. Mk 12:29-31).
Charity “provides protection against adversity.” With love in the soul, adversity does not harm but is useful to the person who has charity: “Misfortune and difficulties seem pleasant to the lover and our own experience verifies this.” May I add that for the saints, when the cross comes, it is the Lord who comes, and the wounds that hurt are “sweet wounds.”
Charity, finally, leads to happiness, since eternal blessedness is promised only to those who have charity. Without charity, “all other things are insufficient.” St. Catherine says only charity opens the gate of heaven for us, and only charity accompanies us in heaven.
Charity achieves four things, St. Thomas tells us. It effects (1) the remission of sins: “the offense is forgiven to the offender because of love.” Is there no need of penance then? “It must be understood that no one truly loves who is not truly repentant.” Charity (2) illumines the heart: where there is charity, there is the Holy Spirit. Charity (3) effects perfect joy in a person, and likewise, charity (4) “effects perfect peace and gives a person great dignity”: it transforms “a slave into a free person and a friend.” Hence, the gift of charity “far excels all other gifts: when we possess charity, we also necessarily possess the Holy Spirit.”
Charity gives meaning to life. It is the virtue which is mother, queen and form of all virtues, whose acts are good only (in the perspective of the kingdom of heaven) if permeated, or vivified by charity.
In life, love is what matters most. St. Bernard: “The measure of love judges the greatness that each soul has, so that, for instance, he who has great love is great, he who has little love is little, while he who has no love at all is nothing.” St. Paul says: “If I have no love, I am nothing.” In her wonderful Dialogue, God tells St. Catherine: “The soul cannot live without love. It always tends to love something, because it is made of love, because I created her out of love.” God’s love in our hearts sidelines and conquers self–love to which we are all inclined, and which is the cause of all evils.
St. Augustine: “Love and do what you want” (Ama et fac quod vis). With true love in our hearts, we love all that is good: prayer, justice, truthfulness, freedom, compassion and humility. Only divine love leads to true freedom. Indeed, “love is the only medicine that heals the wrinkles of the soul” (Teresa de Avila).
The primary object, the theological virtue of charity is God. The secondary object, love of neighbor – not separated from the primary – in ourselves, all other human beings – the needy in particular, and God’s creation (cf. 1 Jn 1:34; 1 Cor 13:1). Thus, charity characterizes a true Christian: “You are Christians and that very name means that you believe in charity. You must imitate the charity and love of Christ” (Asterius of Amasea).
(Image: Bessi at Pixabay.com)
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