Growing in Theological Virtues: Love and God’s Family (Charity)
“Meanwhile these three remain: faith, hope and love. And the greatest of these is love.”
Charity is the greatest of the theological virtues. Hope and faith are at the service of charity. The very purpose of hope – to teach us to trust – and of faith – to give us intimacy – is to prepare us to love.
One of those questions that modernism has really messed up for us is, “Why do you exist?” Modernism (the philosophy that denies that anyone can know objective truth) tells us that this answer cannot really be known. But Catholics do know why we exist. We exist to know God, to love him, to serve him in this world and to be eternally happy with him in the next.
In other words, God created us to be members of His divine Family. He created us simply so that he could love us and so that we could love him. But as members of a Family with God as our Father, we are also carted to love each other. This is the very meaning of the concept of “Covenant.”
This truth is verified for us in the two Great Commandments. When Jesus is asked what the two greatest commandments are, he quotes from Deuteronomy and Leviticus. “The first is ‘Hear, oh Israel. You shall love the Lord Your God with all your heart, all your mind and all your soul,’ and the second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” These “Great Commandments” were understood even by the Hebrew People to sum up the very purpose of the Law of Moses. Jesus verified that all of salvation history is summarized in the call to love.
We are first called to love God. Our love for God defines the very center of our life. We are called to love God with our entire being. Unfortunately, the great temptation most of us face is to be distracted from the main goal of our lives and to treat God as just another good, equal to all others, rather than as THE good. So love of God is always a challenge.
Next we are called to love our neighbor as ourselves. What does this mean? We love ourselves by first recognizing why we are lovable.
We are made in the image of God, who is love.
We are created to be members of God’s family
We are made children of God by adoption in Jesus
All of this gives you an inestimable dignity and value. But this dignity and value is not given to you because of any merit of your own. It is yours as a gift from God. And it is shared by the entire human race. So once we recognize this value in ourselves, we immediately recognize it in other human persons. We can then love our neighbor as ourselves.
It sometimes baffles people why Jesus tells us that the law “Love your neighbor as yourself” is JUST LIKE the law to love God with our entire being. The official line the Church gives us – that we love God and love our neighbor for God’s sake – never quite satisfied me. What does it mean that we love our neighbor for God’s sake?
I finally found an answer that resonated with what I know about charity. This answer came from Dr. Scott Hahn’s talk “God’s Family and Ours: The Church and the Trinity” from Lighthouse Catholic Media. Dr. Hahn talked about the Trinity as the ultimate family, and the Church as an extension of that family formed by God’s ever-expanding love. Finally Jesus’ statement made sense. We cannot love the Father without loving His family. God is love and God’s love embraces His family. If we can’t embrace his family, we cannot embrace the Father.
Charity is not just another virtue for disciples of Christ. It is THE virtue. Every other virtue leads to charity. We are called to become better people through virtue so that we can become people of love. After all, that is what it means to be the image of God.
Just like the other theological virtues (faith and hope), charity is first a grace given to us in baptism and grown through the power of the Holy Spirit. But it is given to us just like a physical muscle. It’s up to us to strengthen it and to use it. If you would like to learn more about how to cooperate with grace in order to become a person of love, you might be interested in From the Abbey’s online courses. The Power of Virtue helps you develop your character through establishing and strengthening virtue so you can become the masterpiece God created you to be. Building Community focuses on building up your closest relationships – your marriage, parenting and friendships, so you can build a supportive community of faith around you. And the course “To Love as Christ Loved” is our course specifically on how to build charity. All of these courses can help you build the virtue of charity so you can live as a member of God’s family and grow in holiness. Click on one of the links above and join a dynamic Catholic learning community as we grow in our love of God together.
Brought to you by Jeff Arrowood, founder of the From the Abbey Catholic educational apostolate – encouraging you to rediscover the JOY of learning and living your faith so you can grow in intimacy with God.
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