(c)Mateo Ivankovic 2017
July 11, 2018
St. Benedict
Dear Family of Mary!
St. Benedict
Dear Family of Mary!
"...My children, you are given the freedom to choose, but, as a mother, I implore you to choose the freedom for the good..." (July 2, 2018)
Our final virtue, and the most important of all is Charity
(love)! As you can tell from the Catechism, love is the essence of God
and our goal in life. All our actions must be motivated by and imbued
with love. Because love is God and God is love.
Charity
1822 Charity is the theological
virtue by which we love God above all things for his own sake, and our
neighbor as ourselves for the love of God.
1823 Jesus makes charity the new commandment. (Jn
13:34) By loving his own "to the end," (Jn 13:1) he makes manifest the
Father's love which he receives. By loving one another, the disciples
imitate the love of Jesus which they themselves receive. Whence Jesus
says: "As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my
love." and again: "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I
have loved you." (Jn 15:9)
1824 Fruit of the Spirit and
fullness of the Law, charity keeps the commandments of God and his
Christ: "Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide
in my love." (Jn 15:9-10)
1825 Christ died out of love for
us, while we were still "enemies." (Rom 5:10) The Lord asks us to love
as he does, even our enemies, to make ourselves the neighbor of those
farthest away, and to love children and the poor as Christ himself. (Mt
5:44)
The Apostle Paul has given an
incomparable depiction of charity: "charity is patient and kind, charity
is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Charity does
not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not
rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Charity bears all things,
believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." (1 Cor
13:4-7)
1826 "If I . . . have not charity,"
says the Apostle, "I am nothing." Whatever my privilege, service, or
even virtue, "if I . . . have not charity, I gain nothing." (1 Cor
13:1-). Charity is superior to all the virtues. It is the first of the
theological virtues: "So faith, hope, charity abide, these three. But
the greatest of these is charity." (1 Cor 13:13)
1827 The practice of all the
virtues is animated and inspired by charity, which "binds everything
together in perfect harmony"; (1 Cor 13:13) it is the form of the
virtues; it articulates and orders them among themselves; it is the
source and the goal of their Christian practice. Charity upholds and
purifies our human ability to love, and raises it to the supernatural
perfection of divine love.
1828 The practice of the moral life
animated by charity gives to the Christian the spiritual freedom of the
children of God. He no longer stands before God as a slave, in servile
fear, or as a mercenary looking for wages, but as a son responding to
the love of him who "first loved us": (Col 3:14)
If we turn away from evil out of
fear of punishment, we are in the position of slaves. If we pursue the
enticement of wages, . . . we resemble mercenaries. Finally if we obey
for the sake of the good itself and out of love for him who commands . .
. we are in the position of children. (Jn 4:19)
1829 The fruits of charity are joy,
peace, and mercy; charity demands beneficence and fraternal correction;
it is benevolence; it fosters reciprocity and remains disinterested and
generous; it is friendship and communion: Love is itself the
fulfillment of all our works. There is the goal; that is why we run: we
run toward it, and once we reach it, in it we shall find rest.
Our Lady calls us to love in this message:
"Dear children! Today I call you to love with all your heart and with all your soul. Pray for the gift of love, because when the soul loves it calls my Son to itself. My Son does not refuse those who call Him and who desire to live according to Him. Pray for those who do not comprehend love, who do not understand what it means to love. Pray that God may be their Father and not their Judge. My children, you be my apostles, be my river of love. I need you. Thank you." (March 18, 2010)
"Be my river of love." Oh how much we want to respond to this call from Our Lady. May we become rivers of love, rivers of hope, and rivers of faith. May we become true Apostles of Our Lady!
In Jesus, Mary and Joseph!
Cathy Nolan
©Mary TV 2018
"Medjugorje is the spiritual center of the world."
Saint John Paul II
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