Christian Charity (2)

Christian Charity (2) We talk a great deal about loyalty and justice nowadays, but forget perhaps that the chief obstacle to their practice in private life and on an international scale is above all lack of charity in the most Christian sense of the word. The vital force for any virtue whatsoever is absent if love of good, and love which is reflected from God upon our neighbour, is not present in our hearts. Therefore, our proclamation of charity - a Christian's Love, must be operative rather than just words, and should begin at home, with ourselves. But first, we must love God. Since a person who does not love God, who is the greatest good, does not love at all. Jesus once told us: 'If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love...This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you' (Jn 15:10,12). Hence loving our neighbours is inseparable from loving God. For God is Love and He is the source of Love. If we don't get close to the source, how are we going to have resources to give to others? If we don't get close to Jesus, how do we truly able to love others as ourselves? For how can we be charitable to all if we don't have love within our hearts? Stay closer to Jesus then, let Him dwell within you, then His Love will flow from you! We love God, so we love our neighbours. We serve God by giving help and service from our hearts to others. Therefore, in all our works of charity, we should have before our eyes God the Father and his beloved Son Jesus Christ. And that is how we can see Jesus, like Mother Teresa, in the face of all our neighbours. Charity excludes no one; whether to those in Heaven, in Purgatory, and on earth - present and to come. No one escapes the extended arms of love except those who have willingly put themselves outside its grasp forever. Therefore, our love needs to be as universal as God's Love, because it is the charity of God in us. Do the utmost good for your neighbour; and what you cannot do in need, do in desire, through compassion, by interceding for men in your prayer to God. There is an enormous amount of good to do in this world, if only we want to! Do not forget, every work of charity has an infinite value. Our endurance and perseverance of charity to our neighbours on earth can exchange for us the unimaginable and unending bliss of heaven.

(Reference: 'Rosminian Spirituality: In the Spirit of the Founder', Fr Giovanni Gaddo, 1971)