CHARITY

Charity is the most important element in Christian life. God first loved us; and what he most desires of us is that we should love him above all and love one another out of love for God (CCC 1822). The love Christ seeks from us is the kind described magnificently by St. Paul (1 Cor 13:1-13). This love sets us free (CCC 1828). It is a love that “the Holy Spirit pours into our hearts” (Rom 5:5).

We can love freely with this divine love, not of our own power, but because God, who seeks our love, gives us the power. When grace is first planted in our hearts, the theological virtue of charity is given to us (CCC 1813). Nothing could make our lives more excellent or rich; what God asks of us is precisely what we most need.
To be faithful to the Gospel, the catechist must always put this love in first place. The Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us that in all teaching of faith, whether it concerns the Creed or the sacraments or the commandments, we should always be teaching love. We must always proclaim that every Christian activity should “spring from love, and have no other objective but to arrive at love” (Roman Catechism, Preface, 10; quoted in CCC 25).

Love makes strong demands. The first and greatest commandment is that we should love God; the second is that we should love one another. At the root, it is love that imposes every other real duty upon us (cf. Mt 22:40; CCC 2055). But love also makes light and easy all that otherwise might have been bitter and unsupportable.

See: Beatitudes; Grace; Law of Christ; Moral Principles, Christian; Theological Virtues.



Russell Shaw. Our Sunday Visitor's Encyclopedia of Catholic Doctrine. Copyright © 1997, Our Sunday Visitor.

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Last Updated: Sunday, April 01, 2001 03:24:19 PM