List of points

Charity is not something we ourselves build up. It invades us along with God's grace, 'because he has loved us first'. We would do well to fill, to saturate ourselves with this most beautiful truth: 'If we are able to love God, it is because we have been loved by God.' You and I are able to lavish affection upon those around us, because we have been born to the Faith, through the Father's love for us. Ask God boldly for this treasure, for the supernatural virtue of charity, so that you may practise it even in the smallest details.

Too often we Christians have not known how to correspond to this gift. At times we have debased it, as if it could be confined to a soulless and cold almsgiving; or we have reduced it to more or less stereotyped good works. This distortion of charity was well expressed once by a sick woman when she commented with sad resignation, 'Yes, they treat me with "charity" here, but my mother used to look after me with affection.' A love that springs from the Heart of Christ could never countenance such distinctions.

In order that you might grasp this truth very clearly, I have preached on countless occasions that we do not have one heart to love God with and another with which to love men. This poor heart of ours, made of flesh, loves with an affection which is human and which, if it is united to Christ's love, is also supernatural. This, and no other, is the charity we have to cultivate in our souls, a charity which will lead us to discover in others the image of Our Lord.

I like to repeat what the Holy Spirit tells us through the prophet Isaiah, discite benefacere, learn how to do good. I like to apply this advice to all the different aspects of our interior struggle, because we can never consider our lives as Christians as something finished and complete. The Christian virtues develop as a consequence of real effort, each day.

Take any job in life; how do we set about learning it? First we find out what we want to achieve and what means we have to obtain it. Then we use those means, perseveringly, over and over again, until we have formed a well-rooted habit. As soon as we learn one thing, we discover other things hitherto unknown to us and they in turn stimulate us to continue working without ever giving up.

Charity towards our neighbour is an expression of our love of God. Accordingly, when we strive to grow in this virtue, we cannot fix any limits to our growth. The only possible measure for the love of God is to love without measure; on the one hand, because we will never be able to thank him enough for what he has done for us; and on the other, because this is exactly what God's own love for us, his creatures, is like: it overflows without calculation or limit.

In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus teaches his divine command of charity to all who are ready to listen with an open mind. At the end, by way of summary, he says, 'Love your enemies, and do good to them, and lend to them, without any hope of return; then your reward will be a rich one, and you will be children of the most High, generous like him towards the thankless and unjust. Be merciful, then, as your Father is merciful.'

Mercy is more than simply being compassionate. Mercy is the overflow of charity, which brings with it also an overflow of justice. Mercy means keeping one's heart totally alive, throbbing in a way that is both human and divine, with a love that is strong, self-sacrificing and generous. Here is what St Paul has to say about charity in his hymn to this virtue, 'Charity is patient, is kind; charity feels no envy; charity is never perverse or proud, never insolent; does not claim its rights, cannot be provoked, does not brood over an injury; takes no pleasure in wrong-doing, but rejoices at the victory of truth; sustains, believes, hopes, endures, to the last.'

We are now convinced that charity has nothing whatever in common with the caricature that sometimes has been made of this central virtue of the Christian life. Why, then is it necessary to preach about it so constantly? Is it just a topic that has to be preached about, but has little chance of being put into practice in everyday life?

If we look about us we could find reasons for believing that charity is a phantom virtue. But if we then consider things from a supernatural point of view, we can also see what is the root cause of this sterility: the absence of a continuous and intense, person-to-person relationship with Our Lord Jesus Christ, and an ignorance of the work of the Holy Spirit in the soul, whose very first fruit is precisely charity.

In commenting on St Paul's advice, 'bear one another's burdens and so you will fulfil the law of Christ', one of the Fathers of the Church says, 'By loving Christ we can easily bear the weaknesses of others, including those people whom we do not love as yet because they are lacking in good works.'

This is the direction taken by the path that makes us grow in charity. We would be mistaken were we to believe that we must first engage in humanitarian activities and social works, leaving the love for God to one side. 'Let us not neglect Christ out of concern for our neighbour's illness, for we ought to love the sick for the sake of Christ.'

Turn your gaze constantly to Jesus who, without ceasing to be God, humbled himself and took the nature of a slave, in order to serve us. Only by following in his direction will we find ideals that are worthwhile. Love seeks union, identification with the beloved. United to Christ, we will be drawn to imitate his life of dedication, his unlimited love and his sacrifice unto death. Christ brings us face to face with the ultimate choice: either we spend our life in selfish isolation, or we devote ourselves and all our energies to the service of others.