Salesian Literature

Chapter 22:  A brief description of charity

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You can see at last, then, how God leads the soul by inexpressibly charming ways, when he rescues it from the Egypt of sin.  He leads it from love to love, as though from camp to camp, until he brings it to the promised land – I mean, to the state of perfect charity.

 

Charity, in a word, is the unselfish love of friendship, by which we love God for his own sake, because his goodness is supremely lovable.  It is a true friendship, for it is mutual; God has loved from all eternity anyone who has loved, is loving, or will love him in time (1 Jn. 4:10).  There is also mutual knowledge and expression of that love: God is not unaware of our love for him, since it is his gift to us; nor can we be unaware of his love for us, since he has proclaimed it so widely; we also recognize that all the good things we possess are due to his benevolence.  Finally, we are in constant communication with him: he is ever talking to us by his inspirations, by the attractions and impulses of grace; he never fails to do good to us, to give every indication of his love for us, sharing all his secrets with us, as with trusted friends (cf. Jn. 15:15).  To crown this loving friendship, he has become our very food in the blessed sacrament of the Eucharist.  As for ourselves, we can call on him at all times in prayer, at our pleasure; for it is in him that we live, and move, and have our being (Acts. 17:28).

 

Here is no simple friendship, however, but affection; we make a choice of God, to love him with a special love.  The bride in the Song of Songs exclaims: Among ten thousand you shall know him (Cant. 5:10): but she means that he is preferred to all.

 

Such love of God, therefore, can have no source in nature, human or angelic; it is poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit (Rom. 5:5).  Just as the soul – the body’s vital principle – comes, not from the body, but from God’s natural providence; so charity – the soul’s vital principle – wells, not from within, but from above, from God’s supernatural providence.

 

For this reason, and also because it looks towards, tends towards God – not through natural knowledge of his goodness, but through the supernatural knowledge of faith – we call it a supernatural friendship.  That is why, together with faith and hope, it makes its dwelling-place in the apex, the highest point of the soul.  It is enthroned in the will, like some majestic queen, showering its charms over all the soul, thus making it fair, pleasing and lovable to God.

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