Mater Dolorosa Catholic Church

Easter - Week 05 - Year c

Fifth Sunday of Easter - The New Commandment

(From Conversation with God, Fernandez Carvajal)

This is love for Christ: As you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me. With the help of grace, a Christian discovers God in his neighbor: he knows that we are all children of the same Father and brothers of Jesus Christ. The virtue of charity brings us closer to our neighbor in a very meaningful way. Our love is not to be confused with sentimentality or mere good fellowship, nor with that somewhat questionable zeal to help others in order to convince ourselves of our superiority. Rather, it means living in peace with our neighbor, venerating the image of God that is found in each and every man, and doing all we can to get all others in their turn to contemplate that image, so that they too may learn how to turn to Christ.

Our Lord gave a new and incomparably deeper meaning to love for our neighbor. He established it as the New Commandment and as the sign by which Christians will be known. Divine love, as I have loved you, is the measure of the love we must have for other people; it is, therefore, a supernatural love which God himself places in our hearts. At the same time it is a deeply human love, which is enriched and strengthened by grace.

Charity is not the same as natural sociability, the consciousness of that fraternity that comes from ties of blood, or a feeling of compassion for the victims of misfortune. Nevertheless, the theological virtue of charity does not exclude legitimate earthly loves; rather does it raise them. It purifies them and makes them deeper and more stable. The charity of a Christian usually finds itself expressed in virtues needed for living in harmony with others; in good manners and courtesy, for example, which are then elevated to a higher and definitive order.

Without charity life lacks its prime and essential ingredient. The most sublime eloquence, and all the good works imaginable would be like the fading reverberation of a booming gong or the clash of cymbals which lasts scarcely a few moments and then fades away into nothing. Without charity, the Apostle says, even the most sought-after gifts are of little value. If I have not love, I am nothing. Many doctors and scribes knew more about God, much more, than the majority of those who accompanied Jesus, about whom it is said that they do not know the law, but all their knowledge was fruitless. They did not understand what was most important - the presence of the Messiah in their midst, and his message of understanding, of respect and of love.

Lack of charity dulls the intelligence so that it cannot know God and fails to understand the dignity of man. Love sharpens and focuses all our powers. Only charity - love of God and of our neighbor for God's sake - prepares and disposes us to understand God and all that refers to him, so far as is possible for a finite creature. He who does not love does not know God, Saint John teaches, for God is love. The virtue of hope also becomes sterile without charity, for it is impossible to attain what one does not love. All our works are in vain without charity, even the most skillfully or energetically executed ones and those that demand sacrifice. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. There is no substitute for charity.