A Society of Love

Fourth Homily

This talk was given in the church of Monte Calvario, Domodossola, 10 October 1851. It is a work of high theology, a treatise of profound mysticism and a song from the heart of a lover. It is a canticle of praise, of thanksgiving and of holy exaltation sometimes restrained, sometimes bursting like a flood from a spirit enthralled and sublimated in contemplation, adoration and full possession of love. The talk has to be read and re-read. It needs to be meditated, each phrase needs savouring. And then? We have to abandon ourselves to the impetus of charity and allow ourselves to be lapped by the waves of loving delight which lead the soul to lose itself in the Infinite. Here we find Rosmini whole and entire, in all his spiritual beauty, and greater than ever. It is not him, of course, whom we feel. A more powerful force, the force of love, speaks in him. For years, he had undergone suffering of all kinds. The political events of 1848–49, the calumnies and defamation of the following years, the heavy weight of the condemnation of two famous works, and the dark, terrifying threat of condemnation of all his writings, under examination by the Sacred Congregation of the Index (the examination lasted five years 1849–1854 and was concluded with a solemn Dimittantur), all were used by love to purify and transform his spirit. And all the while he moved through the boundless heavens of pain and love in unconfined joy! Adore, be silent, savour.

Charity

1. What do I lack?(1)

In Baptism, the sacrament of faith, we are reborn through the mystical activity of Christ; our soul is signed with the character, and we are prepared for divine worship.
In Confirmation this mysterious activity is renewed. The Word, the character of God the Father, is more deeply impressed in our soul, already redeemed by the spotless blood of the Word. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, our own spirit grows to maturity and attains full adulthood. Strengthened in this way, we can easily practise the most difficult acts of worship, acknowledging God and fearlessly bearing witness to his son, Jesus Christ, before the whole world.

This deiform activity has been repeated a third time in those of you, my brothers, who have in addition been invested with the solemn, public priesthood and new, exceptional gifts. Nothing, it would seem is lacking to your perfection, yet your presence shows very clearly that you have listened to Christ’s voice: If you will be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor and you shall have treasure in heaven. And come follow me (Matt 19: 21).
Yes, dignity from on high is not enough if we are to achieve perfection. Nor is it sufficient for us to have been spiritually prepared as adult Christians for the highest purposes, and enriched with the gift of spiritual talents entrusted to our stewardship. It is not even enough to have received and begun to practise, over and above these gifts, Jesus’ own teaching on perfection, the royal road of charity.

Think of the young man who asked Jesus Christ about the path to perfection and told him that he already loved his neighbour. He said about the great commandments: All these have I kept from my youth. Despite this, he still felt he lacked something: What is yet wanting to me? (Matt 19: 20) The Saviour noted that he had still not renounced worldly things: If you will be perfect, go, sell what you have (Matt 19:20).

Yes, all Christians have been called to the perfect life, and have been given the rule of charity which is the fulfilment and goal of the Law (cf. Rom 13: 10; 1 Tim 1: 5), and may indeed strive to fulfil it, according to their condition in life. Nevertheless, only those reach the summit of perfection who, detached in spirit and truth, strip themselves of all worldly possessions, and of all attachment to their own life. They realise that they have no good of their own other than God, and that their sole daily work and profession is God’s own charity.

Devout they may be, but Christians can still be concerned about leaving an earthly inheritance and, in doing so, waste a great deal of their strength, thoughts and affections. In this case, they cannot bring together, unify and pour out all that they have directly on divine charity, whose treasure and only inheritance is found in heaven.

This shows the greatness of the gift given us by the Lord when he chose us and took us out of this world. It also reveals the sublimity of the self-offering you willingly come here to complete before him, and which I, in his name and in that of his holy Church, shall presently receive from your lips and hearts at this holy altar in the presence of our Lord and Teacher, Jesus Christ, and of your Angels and of the Saints. They are here, invisible but gazing upon you, listening and bearing witness for all eternity.

The sublimity of your oblation provides the theme of my talk. I want to help you, before you utter your holy vows, to recall the greatness of Christ’s charity to which you now consecrate yourselves. May you draw comfort and greater spiritual joy from my words as you yourselves pronounce the words binding you tightly and for ever to the essence of goodness, to God himself, who is charity. Listen, then, with a cheerful and open heart.

2. Charity is its own end, and beyond human power

Christ’s charity, dear brothers, is simply justice at its most perfect.
It is right to love God, and so the just love him. The righteous love thee (Cant 1: 3). But in the lover the special, proper object of love is simply the will of the beloved. Whoever loves, desires the fulfilment and satisfaction of the will of the beloved.
Charity, therefore, means loving and, in loving, fulfilling the divine Will. But what does the divine will want? All it wants from us — what a marvel this is — is love itself. The divine will is manifested and summed up clearly and fully only in the great commandments of love of God and one’s neighbour.
One consequence of this is worthy of the deepest meditation: holy love is its own end and, in seeking the eternal will of God as its own, proper object, finds in it its very self. Brothers, let me explain this entire, wonderful cycle.

Note first how divine providence serves the supreme will of our Almighty Lord which intends, through grace, to produce in his creatures the splendid, if still hidden, work of divine love. I am speaking of the providence which orders the chain of events and rules all that happens in the world. All who love God, therefore, surrender to divine providence as to their mother and queen, inwardly aware that to those who love God all things work together unto good (Rom 8: 28).

And here we pause to reflect on questions springing spontaneously to the mind. Which of us can ever raise himself to God? Who can ever plumb the infinite depth hidden in the concept of perfect justice? Can mortal mind soar high enough to encounter the will of God, to penetrate its secret and to love it, or to understand how the impoverished, defective will of a finite being can become attuned to the most perfect will of the infinite Being? Can we ever understand how, from these two totally distinct wills, such harmony arises from all things in the universe that, in serving the glory of the Creator, they serve simultaneously the good of his creation?
These are profound questions which in themselves clearly demonstrate the importance of charity. So, before we think about charity and celebrate it, we first have to prove how it is possible for human beings.

3. Christ in us is our charity

Yes, dear brothers, it is true: charity is utterly beyond human power. It demands a living knowledge of God, and conformity to the infinite wisdom and limitless goodness of the divine will. Even the supernatural character of the loving act itself is beyond human possibility. However, it is precisely the work and glory of Christ to make it possible for us. He is God as well as man.

First, he alone gives us faith, which makes us know the object of charity. Of its nature human flesh cannot behold the Almighty but, reborn by water and the Holy Spirit, our ears ringing with the Good News, our soul illuminated by interior light, we firmly believe in God. The foundation of our belief rests on the word of the Only Begotten Son who is close to the Father’s heart, and has made him known. No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, he has declared him (Jn 1: 18).
How does this light and faith communicate itself to us? How do we continually carry this power with us; how are we so splendidly clothed in it? The answer lies in the power of the seal impressed upon us in the sacraments, the character we have taken as the starting point of our argument.

What is this power? What is this faith infused in us? St. Paul says: Faith is the substance of the things in which we hope and again, the proof of those things which we cannot see (Heb 11: 1). St. Thomas Aquinas, commenting on this passage, defines faith as that which ‘makes subsist in us the very things for which we should hope’ (In Eph 3; lect. 5). The things we hope for, which subsist within us through the power of faith, is Christ himself, the Word of the Father, the Beloved, in short, the object of charity.
Nothing else is worthy of our affection or our ardent desire. No good, when compared with this, retains its attraction. This is why St. Paul’s sole wish for his Ephesians is that Christ may dwell by faith in your hearts (Eph 3: 17).

This sublime Word, God from God the Father, the figure of his substance (Heb 1: 3), through his everlasting mercy, impresses himself upon our souls. He does this through the sacraments which he, Jesus Christ, has instituted in his love for the sake of uniting and binding to himself all other human beings.
Through these sacraments Christ and ourselves and all those whom he has redeemed, become one body (just as head and limbs make up a single body), and one vine (just as the vine is composed of stock and branches), although the branches of this mystic vine spread throughout the whole of earth and heaven.

This, dear brothers, is how divine charity which, as I have said, comprises ‘the perfection of justice’ and ‘the fulfilment of the most high will of the Creator’, becomes possible for us. Charity is so sublime in itself that it could never have sprung from the will of man or of the flesh. But, because Christ was born from all eternity of God the Father, as his natural-born Son, he drew charity ab aeterno from God, along with the divine nature. Forming one body with him, we share by adoption in this eternal birth, and with him share willingly and freely in charity. This is why St. John can write: By this has the charity of God appeared towards us, because God has sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we may live by him, and: every one that loves is born of God and knows God (1 Jn 4: 9, 7).

So let us rejoice and be glad in spirit. To the blind eyes of nature we may appear rash, and the world may criticise us, but holy fervour enables us to undertake the great, superhuman work of vowing ourselves to charity, which is as far above mankind as God is. Christ lives in us and his Spirit loves in us: I live, now not I; but Christ lives in me ... the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts, by the Holy Spirit who is given to us (Gal 2: 20; Rom 5: 5).

4. Christ in us is the great lover

Because the indelible character left upon our souls in the sacraments is our Lord Jesus Christ himself, the brightness of God’s glory and the figure of his substance (Heb 1: 3), so Christ is the great lover in all of us. He is our power of love: by the grace of God, I am what I am (1 Cor 15: 10). Love is Christ’s very own Spirit diffused in our souls, where he either finds no obstacles, or conquers them.

Brothers, we are now uncovering the root of charity and its shoots. The character is the strong, healthy root; operative and co-operative grace, in all its forms — gifts, powers, fruits and activity — are its abundant shoots. And Jesus Christ and his Holy Spirit are in them all. These are the great, indescribable traces of Almighty God in mankind. When you know them for what they are, you know charity for what it is.

Think of the breadth and height of the theme I have dared offer to you in trying to describe the greatness of Christ’s charity in us.
For my part, I do not complain about my own inadequacy in this matter. My weakness simply demonstrates the height of bliss at which your hearts are aimed, as you all decide to enrol among the ranks of those great-hearted individuals whose sole aim is to live for love. Through love of divine Love, the only pure, unadulterated love, you want to live in the Institute of Charity, in the Institute of lovers, as it were.

5. God’s presence in us is charity

Dear brothers, there is no doubt that the Old Testament speaks of the traces of God in the universe. But it speaks of God as so boundless that only a very rash individual will think he can comprehend him. Although the Creator has indeed left the impress of his omnipotence and wisdom on his works, his mark remains to some degree constrained and confused by the finite nature of creation, which cannot wholly take it in. The divine traces of God’s omnipotence and wisdom fall short of God’s greatness.
This cannot be said in the same way of the impress of holiness and divine charity in the Word made flesh, which have no limit. Charity and holiness are per se the divine substance since God is charity (1 Jn 4: 8), and holy is his name and he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit (1 Cor 6: 17). Am I mad? Maybe, but what I have said explains why I can dare assert that, there are in the world adequate traces of God and that they are found only as charity reveals itself and acts in human beings.

6. Knowing the charity of Christ

Look what Job says: Peradventure you will comprehend the steps of God, and find out the Almighty perfectly? He is higher than heaven, and what will you do? He is deeper than hell, and how will you know? The measure of him is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea (Job 1: 7–9). So speaks an age prior to Jesus Christ.

But we, dear brothers, live under the law of grace. We live in an age in which human beings have been changed, and heaven and earth renewed. Jesus Christ has come to make comprehensible, to some extent, things which of themselves are incomprehensible to us. Of course, Almighty God can be comprehended only by God. But Christ is God, and his Holy Spirit who infuses charity into our hearts is also God, For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God (1 Cor 2: 10).

St. Paul, describing the greatness of God’s charity in almost the same terms as Job, dared to transcend Job when he told the Ephesians: Let Christ dwell by faith in your hearts; that, being rooted and founded in charity, you may be able to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth; to know also the charity of Christ, which surpasses all knowledge; that you may be filled unto all the fullness of God (Eph 3: 17–19). This is the text with which I began today’s homily.
No one said or even imagined such a thing before Jesus Christ came into the world. None of the holy Patriarchs and Prophets ever uttered so sublime a prayer. Job himself, that holy man, affirmed that God’s traces in the world were incomprehensible. Yet Paul, kneeling before the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, beseeches him to grant the Christians of Ephesus the attributes of charity, the greatest, most astounding of all the divine traces impressed in the universe.
Brothers, fearlessly and unhesitatingly let us accompany St. Paul and with him look more deeply, boldly yet reverently, into the grandeur of the charity to which we are determined to dedicate ourselves.

7. The interaction of faith and charity

When St. Paul called upon the Father of our Lord to allow the faithful of Ephesus to grasp what I may term the four dimensions of divine charity, he was not of course trying to say that his Christians would be able to understand the Almighty perfectly and enfold all his grandeur. What he was teaching them, and what he teaches us, too, is that the Almighty can come close to us through Jesus Christ. He can make his presence felt in such a way that human beings, having seen all distance between God and themselves vanish, may apprehend(2) and, as it were, touch and feel God himself

Now this touch of God derives from living faith, that is, from faith enlivened by charity: planted in love and built on love, as St. Paul says. Charity, therefore, is the only virtue which reveals its own object and makes it known more intimately, as Christ himself taught and promised when he said: He that loves me shall be loved of my Father; and I will love him and will manifest myself to him (Jn 14: 21); and again, But you see me; because I live, and you shall live (Jn 14: 19).

And here, brothers, we have before our eyes the high ladder of perfection depicted as continuous interaction between faith and charity.
First, we have faith which, by making subsist in us the eternal things for which we are to hope — the infinite lovableness of God and of Christ — offers its own object to charity also. Charity itself, by its nature tremendously penetrative, then makes itself at home within its divine object which reveals itself to the lover ever more clearly with new, enhanced and hidden worth. From the light of this new object, known only to love, faith miraculously draws fresh strength and, thus strengthened, increases charity in its turn. Such is the continuous action and interaction of the spiritual life.

8. The length and breadth, the height and depth, of charity

So, if we wish to penetrate more deeply into the mysteries of charity, we find that it contains the circle of eternal life of which I spoke at the beginning in slightly different terms. I said that charity leads us directly to the will of God as its final object, and that the will of God takes us back to charity, which is all that God demands and wants.

It is perfectly reasonable for us to say that charity has charity as its object and aim, and that in consequence the lover goes through a continual process of change into the beloved and the beloved into the lover. But God, essential good and the object of charity, would not be perfect good if he himself were not lover, just as this lover would not be good if he were not beloved. Everything which lacks love is not per se lovable. But if it is not lovable, it is not of itself good; and nothing is good unless it is loved, and is good only to the one who loves it. So the Almighty truly makes himself our good when he is loved by us.
We have to say, therefore, that the grandeur proper to charity shines out in two ways; it has two measures (or would have if it could be measured). On the one hand, its grandeur is equal to the grandeur of its object; on the other, its grandeur equals its inherent power of joining whoever is susceptible of love more perfectly to the object of love. Both measures are presented by St. Paul, as we saw a moment ago.

The object of charity, on which the first measure is based, is God, and Jesus Christ in his human nature and as Head of the Church. I mean God as lover, and Christ as lover. As we said, whoever is incapable of loving, and is not himself lover, cannot be the perfect object of love. So St. Paul prays that Christians should understand this in depth, not superficially. By the power of Christ abiding in them through faith, and by love, they should also comprehend God Almighty and Jesus Christ, the object of that very charity.
So, since God’s charity is undoubtedly equal to the grandeur of his nature, St. Paul prays that we should comprehend the divine nature, as we have seen. He describes it through the four infinite dimensions which in Job are incomprehensible. Breadth symbolises God’s charity, embracing all mankind; length symbolises God’s charity, enduring for all eternity; height symbolises the tendency of God’s charity to raise the intelligent creature to the supreme good and to final perfection; depth symbolises God’s charity which, completing the task it had set itself, works through projects of unfathomable wisdom and through mysteries, such as the Cross, concealed from the ages.

St. Paul prays, too, that the Christians at Ephesus should know the other object, inherent in the first, that is, Jesus Christ the lover in his most blessed humanity. As St. Thomas Aquinas writes:

St. Thomas continues:

These, my brothers, are the objects of charity: God Almighty as lover, and Christ as lover. Or, as we said, charity is the object of charity because ‘God Almighty is charity’, and Christ is consumed in the One who is charity.
From these two objects, measure, if you can, the innate grandeur of charity. As we said, its grandeur must first and foremost be measured by its objects. And it is to this grandeur that you want to dedicate and consecrate yourselves in this Institute so that, with all the saints, you may be consummated in the One. So that you may comprehend with all God’s holy people.

9. Knowledge of charity revealed through the Spirit

This vast field of thought bewilders me. If the object of charity is God himself — charity whose properties are represented according to Paul in those four infinite dimensions — wasn’t the inspired author of Job right to say that we would never comprehend them? So how can he pray that the faithful comprehend them? How can Paul say about the charity of Jesus Christ in his humanity that it exceeds all knowledge, and then go on to ask the Father to let the faithful know it: to know the love of Christ which surpasses all knowledge? How can we know what surpasses knowledge?

This mystery, hidden from the world, is revealed to the children of God. Look at Scripture, which distinguishes two kinds of knowledge: one which goes up from the depths to the heights and the other which descends from on high to the depths. St. Paul says: No eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor has it arisen in the heart of man, what God has prepared for those who love him (1 Cor 2: 9). This knowledge rises in the human heart from our earth and ascends into the intelligent heart of human beings, which is far superior to earth. That is why Paul speaks of the eye, the ear and the senses, through which we gain knowledge here below.

But the Apostle speaks immediately of knowledge which God has revealed to us through the Spirit. As you see, he introduces another kind of knowledge. This is not knowledge acquired through the senses; it is revealed only by the Spirit of God. This is knowledge which descends from on high to our depths (because we are low in comparison with God); and it is this which enables us to comprehend the objects of charity. Through it, we comprehend the incomprehensible, know what surpasses knowledge and penetrate the impenetrable. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God (1 Cor 2: 10).

10. The effect of charity in the lover

This is the new knowledge which makes wise all those who truly consecrate themselves to charity; it is itself charity by nature. Here lies another mystery: charity, as the object of charity, can be comprehended only by charity. As light is known only to the one who sees, so love to the one who experiences it.
As we said, faith first provides charity with its object: charity then penetrates the object and, in penetrating it, makes it its own through experience and understanding. In fact, as long as an object of this kind remains unloved, it does not possess its ultimate form, which renders it properly, proximately and actually the object of charity.
In love itself, therefore, the object reveals itself to the lover; it reveals the lovableness through which the lover loves it. This lovableness is its very self but as long as its lovableness remains hidden, the object of charity is also hidden and seems something other than itself. It can become, but is not yet, what charity alone can find fully complete. This is what I meant when I said that we have to use the second measure to understand, in some way, the grandeur proper to charity. We have to measure charity by its effect in the lover.

11. Subsistent charity in us

This second measure shows charity as boundless and infinite as the first did. The first measure, you remember, was provided by the objects of charity — Almighty God and the humanity of the Redeemer and Head of the Church — which enable us to conclude that charity exceeds all our natural knowledge and comprehension. The second measure was found in the truly effective power which charity unfolds when joining those capable of love to its two infinite objects.

In measuring the grandeur of charity considered in itself according to this norm, we must prescind from accidental limits to expansion imposed by human will, and by evil will. The aim of the followers of charity is to fight every kind of vice in themselves, and endeavour to go forward, as the Apostle did, to the things which lay ahead: One thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on towards what lies ahead (Phil 3: 13). The things that lie ahead are simply Christ at the right of the Father, and our union with him. We press on to charity in its source, the subsistent ideal of charity. By ‘ideal’, I mean the essence of charity, because perfection is essential to charity. Everything imperfect withdraws from it. In other words, we are dealing with a living, not a possible, ideal like so many others found in human, finite matters. I am speaking of charity in all its infinite breadth, charity truly living and subsisting in its objects which, if they were not lovers, would not be what they are. Whoever does not love is not lovable, and cannot be loved with final love.

God Almighty, the first object of charity, is also the first lover. Indeed, he is essentially charity. And one act of this essential charity is the incarnation of Christ.
This explains why Almighty God and Christ are not only the objects of charity but, as I said, its exemplars and cause in us. We love such lovable objects because they, as loving subjects, have first loved us. As the Apostle of charity says: In this, the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world. He repeats: In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation of our sins (1 Jn, 4: 9, 10).

He says that the charity of God appeared among us, and immediately explains what charity is: God is love. God appeared among us, therefore, because he first loved us. God, in loving us, sent himself among us, himself loving, himself charity. He gave us his nature, therefore. But to give others one’s own nature is to generate children. Charity is of God, and because God is of God, God placed the Almighty among us. And every one that loves is born of God and knows God, for God is charity (ibid. 7–8).

Charity, therefore, makes known its own object, God. Just as faith proposes from the beginning the object of charity, so charity vivifies the faith by which we live and know the object of charity in its form as charity. And as faith ‘makes the things to be hoped for subsist in us’, according to St. Thomas’ commentary on St. Paul, so charity makes its own object subsist in us. This object is God in his form as charity.
What a wonder this is! Almighty God, as charity subsistent in us, is our charity! Charity in God, therefore, and charity in us, is one. It is of equal nature, of equal grandeur and of equal infinity. It is always Almighty God in himself and in us, although the act which corresponds on our part to charity placed in us — to Almighty God living in us — is necessarily limited and hence essentially, infinitely different from the act of God himself.

Charity imminent in us is one thing; the act by which we abide in charity is quite different. The Apostle of love distinguishes two correlative, but different things: God’s abiding in us (charity in us) and our abiding in charity: God is charity; and he that abides in charity abides in God, and God in him (ibid. 16). He had learned to distinguish these two things from his divine Master who had said of those eating his flesh and drinking his blood not only: He that eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, but also and I in him (Jn 6: 57).

In measuring the natural grandeur of charity according to the marvellous power it has to unite lovers to the object of their love, we have to distinguish the two ways, distinct but never divided, in which the union takes place. First, when charity places itself in and subsists in the human spirit; second, when human beings keep themselves in charity and cling to it. In other words, Almighty God dwells in us (the first way): we hold ourselves in charity, in God (the second way). Charity always remains what it is. It never loses its nature, it is always God, always God-charity, dwelling in his finite creature. God knows this finite creature of his; he searches within the intimate depths of creatures, reaching to their very foundations, penetrating them entirely and reigning over all that they are.

Charity’s power to unite its lover to itself is immeasurable. No one can place a limit to charity, or say how charity, which pervades the whole of human nature, is now distinguished from it. We cannot indicate any line of separation, nor unveil the mystery of this ineffable union, although I have said enough to indicate that we are speaking about an infinite power.

12. Our act of charity

If we consider the power of charity from the point of view of creatures themselves who cling to God-charity, immanent in themselves, this act is indeed as finite as its subject. But we must not conclude that charity loses its infinite nature. We are face to face with another of the many mysteries which partly reveal and partly hide charity.

The human act is finite, but here revolves around God-charity, an infinite object. Clearly, the finite act does not and cannot limit its object, charity. At the same time, this act seems to lie outside charity because it does not constitute the essence of charity. Nevertheless, it is not only taken up with charity, but penetrates it and dwells in it: he who abides in charity abides in God, and God in him.

This act, therefore, does not finish in itself. It goes beyond itself because it abides in charity, in God, in Christ. But it cannot abide in charity, in God and in Christ, without becoming charity, without being united to God, without being transformed in Christ. This is the new mystery I indicated; here we have two apparently contradictory truths which, however, are not mutually incompatible.

There is no doubt that we abide in God-charity and that God-charity remains distinct from us. Nevertheless, one is in the other: God is all in the human being, and the human being is all in God. The finite act loses itself, or rather finds itself again in the infinite, and the infinite act in the finite. The union is complete, the union is perfect. At one and the same time, the two are both two and one.
If this seems inconceivable, we must conclude that both the power of charity and the grandeur with which it is furnished of its own nature are inconceivable.

13. Love in us is our eternal life

What, then, is charity in human beings? I can only reply: ‘Charity of charity, love of God who is love. This God-Love is love in himself; he is love in us.’
Love in us is our eternal life. The acts of those who live are love of that love through which they live: We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He that does not love, abides in death (1 Jn 3: 14).

What does love of love do, what does charity of charity do? You remember what we said: the object of charity cannot be what it is unless it is loved proximately and fully? Only the lover perceives what is lovable in this object; it remains hidden from one who does not love. But here the object of charity is charity itself. God-charity abiding in us. Consequently, human acts neither fulfil us in ourselves nor render us lovable. But they do fulfil us and render us lovable by receiving in themselves an object which, because it is charity, is already loved per se. Charity in us is not founded on our acts. It is the work of God; it is the presence of the Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ says: In this we know that we abide in him, and he in us; because he has given us of his Spirit (1 Jn 4: 13).

Our acts, brothers, are acts of charity not because charity comes from us, nor because charity can be formed by our acts in so far as they are ours, but because these acts are the effects of charity placed in us. This charity is God himself whose life we live, and whose acts, proper to this life, we carry out.
Here, too, we catch a glimpse of charity’s infinite power to join its lover to itself. Charity is so sublime, so beyond both what we expect and what falls within the experience of natural affections, that it exceeds the ordinary laws of human love and totally inverts their order. The unbelievable grandeur of this subject has led me into apparent contradiction with myself. First, I said that the lover with his act provides the final form for the object of his love, that is, the lovableness without which there is no object of love. I now have to declare that this, although true for all ordinary, human love, can be turned upside down in the case of charity. Here we can say exactly the opposite.

In all natural love, the lover forms, through his act of love, the object of his love. But in charity, both things happen: the lover forms his object of love, and the object forms its lover. The contradiction, however, is only apparent.
If we consider charity in itself, as it dwells in its divine source, we see that its object is not understood without our simultaneously understanding the act of the one who loves, the act of God who loves himself eternally. If, however, we think about charity as it is communicated to human beings, the object of such love possesses something proper and peculiar to itself which finite beings cannot have, no matter how good they are or how wonderful the qualities they possess. This object of love is per se lovable because per se it is loved essentially and before the ages. And this is so because it is of its essence charity per se.

Light from on high shows how wonderful this truth is. I have tried to describe the origin and birth of the divine lover, who cannot be found within this creation. The whole of creation, without exception, is devoid of any capacity for forming even the tiniest act of charity. The immense extent of our universe lacks this kind of fire, this spark, and consequently the lover whom we are seeking. But the spark of love can still be enkindled here. As I said, and will go on saying, the object of charity produces its lover; and the object of charity, which is itself charity, exists prior to us and before creation. When eternal charity posits itself in what is created, and amongst created intelligences, including human intelligences, new life is immediately enkindled. Intelligent beings, human beings, now live in another way. The acts of this new life, produced by charity, are themselves acts of charity. At this point, the lover is born in this world, the limitation of the universe is overcome and created being is loosed from the bonds of its impotence. It too shares in the life of God.

14. Charity is always unlimited

So, dear brothers, our difficulty vanishes. We need have no hesitation about the infinite grandeur of charity despite human weakness and the limitation placed upon the free acts of the creature. The finite, imperfect acts of the creature do not impose their finiteness on charity. If these acts were causes of charity, and charity their effect, this is exactly what would happen. An effect can be less but never greater than its cause. But acts of supernatural love, as we have seen, come from supernatural life which was first absent from nature, but has now been placed there by God. God, who is per se charity, has placed himself, God-charity, in nature. Charity, therefore, is the cause; the effects of this infinite cause are the spiritual life and its free, spontaneous acts. The cause is infinite; the effects, limited by the condition of the nature in which they arise, cannot limit it. If the cause is infinite, and if it is charity, it has infinite power. Yes, we are limited in the acts of life communicated to us by charity and exercised by our free will. Charity, though, retains its unlimited nature.

15. God’s charity in the incarnation

We cannot, therefore, love with the love which is charity without being given charity, which furnishes us with deiform life and with the power to carry out the acts of this life of charity. The Baptist went even further when he taught that both charity, and the power to receive it, is given from on high. With charity, comes the power to receive charity. He speaks even more generally when he says: A man cannot receive anything unless it be given him from heaven (Jn 3: 27).

As John the Evangelist tells us: Life was in him (Jn 1: 4); it was in the Word before it was communicated to us. The Word, who was life, became flesh: And the Word was made flesh. Thus life was in humanity. God is charity; the act of God’s charity was the incarnation. By this has the charity of God appeared towards us, because God has sent his only-begotten Son into the world, that we may live through him (1 Jn 4: 9).

But if God is charity, surely all divine acts, the creation as well as the incarnation, are acts of charity? Yes, this is true, but there is this great difference. All the other acts of God in the work of the world, other than the incarnation, are acts of charity, but they do not have charity as their proximate term. The incarnation is not only an act of charity; it also has charity as its term. God, as we have seen, sent his only-begotten Son so that we may live through him with a life of charity: that we may live through him.

The immediate term of the incarnation, and of everything that follows from the incarnation and completes the eternal project, is to make charity subsist in the world. Christ says: I am come to cast fire on earth. And what will I, but that it be enkindled? (Lk 13: 49). Jesus is the only one who could bring this fire of his Spirit. As the Apostle says: The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts, by the Holy Spirit who is given to us (Rom 5: 5). For charity to be in the world, it was necessary for God to come into the world because God is charity. Charity came into the world in Jesus Christ. When charity was in the world, the world could share in it: And of his fullness we have all received (Jn 1: 16).

16. God-charity in us

Let us see how charity is in Christ; later we shall see how it is in us.
The person in Christ was God. Life, the Holy Spirit, God-charity, was in Christ. The humanity assumed by Christ, although entire in its nature, did not form a human personality. Nature, moreover, is subordinate to person, and acts are attributed, not to nature, but to the person from whom, as from first principle, they derive. Christ’s acts, therefore, were acts of the Word and proceeded from his Spirit. They were acts of charity, which is God.

But human nature in Christ was incapable of placing any limit to the grandeur that charity, God himself, possesses of its nature; the infinite grandeur of charity accompanied all the acts of our Redeemer.
Human nature in Christ, whether it received passively or acted with the most extreme activity, never constituted the personal principle of these acts. Superior to human nature, there was a principle from which all these acts began and went forth. This was God, the Word intimately united through the same nature with his Spirit, essential charity.

These vital acts, whether considered in their supreme principle (in the life which was the Word, and the Word was God) or in themselves (distinct according to the various powers and activities of human nature — its instrument, as it were) require as symbol of their infinite grandeur the four dimensions used in Job, perhaps the oldest of the inspired books, and by St. Paul, to express incomprehensible, divine majesty.

Christ’s greatest act, which was communicated in the most extraordinary way to human nature and infinitely overcame it, was to lay down his animal life through a free choice of his intellective soul.
No one took Christ’s animal life away. He alone laid it down with an act of his divine personship and of his human nature, which obeyed his divine Person. As man, he laid it down through pure love: No man takes it away from me, but I lay it down of myself. And I have power to lay it down: and I have power to take it up again (Jn 10: 18).

17. God-charity in the death of Christ

This great, incomprehensible act of the most holy will of Christ was also an act of the divine Person. As such it was the apex of God’s charity as it appeared in creation: In this we have known the charity of God, because he (God) has laid down his soul for us (1 Jn 3: 16). He says: ‘his soul’, because the soul, that is, his animal life, was the life of God; it was the animal life proper to the intellective soul which in turn was subject to the divine Person with whom it was personally united. The act of man, who laid down his life, was at the same time an act of God, and the most stupendous manifestation of Almighty God-charity.

18. Christ in us

This is the beginning of charity in the world. Charity came here on earth with the God-Man, and from the God-Man was sent forth into other human beings.

Brothers, if we are to see how this took place, we have to return to the very beginning of this talk, that is, to the incorporation of other human beings in Christ. He is the head of the body, the Church (Col 1: 18), and speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in charity (Eph 4: 15–16).

St. Paul’s words show that the spiritual nourishment of grace has to be given to us by Jesus Christ, our head, in whom we have been incorporated. As we saw, we are incorporated into Christ by the impression of the indelible character, Christ in us. He makes himself our head; he makes us his members. The sacraments which we receive, incorporated in Christ, are those ‘ligaments’ of which the Apostle speaks. They are channels or veins coming to us from our head with his Holy Spirit, and bearing nourishment and life.

This is how Christ’s charity is shown in the sublime work of our sanctification; this is how Christ transfuses charity in us: Behold what manner of charity the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called, and be, the sons of God (1 Jn 3: 1). And if sons, heirs also; heirs indeed of God and joint heirs with Christ: yet so, if we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified with him (Rom 8: 17).

19. Living faith and charity

But did we not say that it is faith which saves us? Yes, it is true that he who believes in the Son has everlasting life (Jn 3: 36). And we will not take away from faith what we attribute to charity. But we should at least pause to wonder at the harmony found in the supernatural teaching of Christ. We saw that faith, when simply proposed to us, presents to our spirit the implicit object of charity. When, however, faith is accepted and embraced by us, this object itself becomes God-charity, on which faith lives. This is living faith which the Apostle defines as the substance of things to be hoped for and the evidence of things that appear not (Heb 1: 1). St. Thomas Aquinas, as we know, says of this faith that ‘it makes subsist in us the things to be hoped for.’

But what are the things ‘to be hoped for? They are all charity, glorious charity, the revelation of the glory of charity in us. St. John says: We are now the sons of God (you know, brothers, that this word ‘sons’ is a word of love), but it has not yet appeared what we shall be. We know that when he shall appear we shall be like to him; because we shall see him as he is (1 Jn 3: 2).

We shall see Christ, the very one whom we now believe and confess. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God (1 Jn 4: 15). John speaks of our faith and our confession of Christ in the same terms as he speaks of charity. Charity is not divided from living faith. He goes on: And we have known and believed the charity which God has in us (ibid. 16). He says that we have believed in the charity which God has in us. So the charity of God is the object of our faith because God is charity, and he that abides in charity abides in God, and God in him. The object of living faith is charity; faith, by making its object subsist in us, makes charity subsist in us.

Nevertheless, charity remains the object to be hoped for. The charity of those making their way heavenwards is indeed equal to that of those who have finished their journey. Charity on earth, however, is humiliated; in heaven, it is glorified. And it is pilgrim-charity which allows us to hope for the charity possessed by those in heaven. Listen to John again as he places the perfection of charity precisely in this hope: In this is the charity of God perfected with us, that we may have confidence in the day of judgement (1 Jn 4: 17).

The object of living faith, and of the hope that follows upon faith, and of charity, is always charity, that is, God-charity. Living faith, which makes this object subsist in us, makes charity subsist in us. So he that believes in the Son has life everlasting; but he that believes not the Son shall not see life (Jn 3: 36). This life is the charity of God in which we now believe. Believing in it, we possess it and we hold ourselves in it, hoping that one day it will break out in splendid glory.

What a marvellous circle of life this is! The three theological virtues revolve, each re-entering and in-existing in the others without confusion.
God, eternal, essential charity, made his solemn entrance into humanity at the time of his incarnation. Charity appeared in the humanity of Christ for in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead corporeally (Col 2: 9). And it has passed to us: And you are filled in him, who is the head of all principality and power (ibid. 10).

It was precisely to gain full understanding of this for the Ephesians that St. Paul, kneeling with great reverence and fervour, prayed to the Father of Jesus Christ that they might know also the charity of Christ, which surpasses all knowledge. This knowledge, which is the knowledge of faith, places charity within us and fills us with the fullness of God himself: That you may be filled unto all the fullness of God (Eph 3: 19).
To be filled with all the fullness of God is the very good that you are seeking, dear brothers, in the Institute of Charity, whose end and aim it is.

20. Charity opposes sin

But charity is also living action. Under this aspect, too, let us consider and admire the grandeur that lies before us.
So far, we have traced the first movement of charity which, coming down from the throne of God most high, has been transfused on earth in the God-Man and from him into those who are simply human. It has been transfused into all those who have been or will be, to the very end of time, incorporated with him through faith and through baptism, and offer no obstacle to his grace. So, in the Book of Wisdom, we find this description of the eternal Word in whom exists the life of charity: And being but one, this wisdom can do all things; and remaining in herself the same, she renews all things and through nations conveys herself into holy souls. She makes them friends of God and prophets (Wisd 7: 27).

Yes, brothers, the first and most wonderful act of charity is its transference to human beings whom it renews while remaining in itself, because God never goes out of himself. If we want to be consecrated to it, brothers, let us place no obstacle to its saving, sanctifying and glorifying action in ourselves. The obstacle is sin. Charity cannot dwell with sin because charity is holiness.

21. Charity does all good

Nevertheless, John has a word for us about this: If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all iniquity (1 Jn 1: 8–9). He wrote in this way to the faithful so that, justified from their sins through faith and the sacraments, they would no longer sin: My little children, these things I write to you that you may not sin (1 Jn 2: 1). But no one can measure human weakness or penetrate the depth of our original infection. We cannot be certain that in the depth of our heart we hide no germ of malice, no reason to provoke God’s anger. We must always fear for ourselves. Even after being justified, we can fall again, and often do fall into small sins. The Apostle of love goes on, therefore, to comfort sinners with these touching words: But if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the just. And he is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world (ibid. 2). This is our consolation; this is how we can be just — like the just who lives by faith: My just man lives by faith (Heb 10: 38), that is, by referring all his justice to Christ by whom he was and is continually justified from sins confessed with a contrite heart.

In the last analysis, justice, the effect of the living faith that justifies us, is at the same time the condition under which charity abides in us. Charity infused in us through the sacraments drives sin away; the presence of mortal sin drives away charity.
But charity abiding in us builds, on the justice of faith, another, more sublime justice. This not only renders us immune from evil, but makes us do good — all good, even to the height of gospel perfection and the fulfilment of Christ’s great commandments and counsels. This is the second action of charity.

John, after declaring that we have Christ as the propitiation of our sins, adds immediately: And by this we know that we have known him, if we keep his commandments. He who says that he knows him and does not keep his commandments is a liar: and the truth is not in him. But he that keeps his word, in him in very deed the charity of God is perfected. And by this we know that we are in him. He that says he abides in him ought to walk even as he walked (1 Jn 2: 3–6).

22. The path followed by Christ

All who come together with a sincere heart in the Institute have this desire. By entering a society of this nature, we all undertake to fix our gaze on the Exemplar indicated by the beloved disciple: He that says he abides in him ought himself to walk even as he walked. Our aim, in the union brought about by the close bonds of affection and religion, is simply this: to help and stimulate one another reciprocally to realise in ourselves this perfect, precious Exemplar. So how did Christ walk? What path did he follow?

First of all, he did his Father’s will: I came down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me (Jn 6: 38). In Isaiah, the Father calls him: The man of my own will (46: 11). We have already seen that the will of God is simply charity itself. God loves himself in everything, and this is charity: The Lord made all things for himself (Prov 16: 4). So Christ, in revealing the mission entrusted to him by his Father’s will, says: Now this is the will of my Father who sent me: that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have life everlasting. And I will raise him up on the last day (Jn 6: 39–40). This is the object of God’s will: everlasting life for all who believe in the one sent by the Father.

But if we now ask what is everlasting life, don’t we find ourselves led back once more to charity? As we said, eternal life is simply exalted and glorified charity; eternal life is God-charity abiding in us forever with unveiled face, with no cloud to hide his essence. The sublime aim of Christ’s mission is, therefore, magnificent, eternal, perfect charity. This mission was to be completed by the very charity which dwelt in Christ: In this we have known the charity of God, because he has laid down his life for us (1 Jn 3: 16). In the ineffable counsel of the incarnation and redemption, charity is both the end and the principle at work in Christ to obtain that end. Christ’s actions, like a means binding principle to end, are also charity. Every breath Christ took was charity. And this is the example freely chosen by us. It is summed up in the words: He has laid down his life for us; and we ought to lay down our loves for the brethren (ibid.).

23. The four dimensions of charity

Words and thoughts are insufficient to understand the grandeur of the charity abiding and burning in all Christ’s actions. Nevertheless, the Apostle prays for the faithful at Ephesus that, being rooted and founded in charity, you may be able to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth of God-charity, and know also the charity of Christ which surpasses all knowledge: that you may be filled unto all the fullness of God (Eph 3: 17–19).

Brothers, let us unite our prayers to those of the Apostle, and to those which Jesus Christ himself first offered for all his faithful. We must never grow tired of begging God, the Almighty Father, and his divine Son to pour charity into our souls. Just as charity alone can comprehend itself and know what is above knowledge, so charity alone can activate itself. Charity is the principle, the means and the end of deiform action; it is eternal glory. Trusting in this light, which we can receive only from God, but which we do indeed receive with all the saints when God posits charity within us, we can take a close, reverent and courageous look at each of the four infinite attributes assigned to charity by St. Paul. So far we have considered these four sublime characteristics as a whole in the divine essence, in the interior spirit of Christ and in his exterior operations. We now consider them separately, one after another. They should characterise the actions of all who wish to consecrate themselves to imitating Christ’s charity, which is superior to all human knowledge. All our activity should be resplendent with these characteristics. Our aim is to have them impressed with greater clarity, and forever, on our hearts.

The first characteristic is the breadth of charity: quae sit latitudo. There is no limit to the breadth of charity which reaches out to enfold all who dwell in heaven, all who still suffer in purgatory, and all, present and to come, who journey here on earth. No one escapes the immense embrace of charity except those who separate themselves from it forever, and willingly become trophies of conquering justice.

If some natural reason could be found for excluding persons from our charity, it would apply to our enemies. But charity is not nature, and what we hear instead are these consoling words: But I say to you: Love your enemies: do good to them that hate you: and pray for them that persecute and calumniate you. That you may be the children of your Father who is in heaven, who makes his sun shine on the good and bad, and rains upon the just and unjust... Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect (Matt 5: 44–45, 48). Christ gives us his Father as teacher of charity; he gives us Almighty God, who is charity, as the example for all our actions.

Already, before the coming of Christ, the spirit of Christ had spoken and suggested to the inspired writer the following prayer: But you have mercy upon all, because you can do all things, and you overlook the sins of men for the sake of repentance. For you love all things that are, and hate none of the things which you have made: for you did not appoint or make anything, hating it. And how could anything endure if you will it not, or be preserved if not called by you. But you spare all: because they are yours, 0 Lord, you who love souls. 0 how good and sweet is your spirit, 0 Lord, in all things (Wisd 11: 24–27; 12: 1). This is what we are told about the breadth of charity in the Book of Wisdom. Christ wants us to imitate it. Our charity, therefore, must be as universal as that of God because it must be God’s charity in us. As such, it must be and is professed by those who associate under the standard of Christ’s charity. Their life must benefit all, continually. There is no limit, no exception. The desire to do good must never be lacking even when that desire cannot be activated. Above all, love for our enemies should shine out. May Almighty God grant that this generous love may always build up our neighbour in our Institute.

This will certainly be the case if Almighty God fulfils his own project in our regard. There need be no doubt about the characteristic proper to this Institute if its intention is to bring together and bind in one the hearts of those who want to live for charity and from charity. It will be marked by generosity devoid of jealousy; it will praise good wherever it is found and whoever does it. It will go to meet hatred with love, and conquer its enemies through good.
Its only revenge will be to consign injury to oblivion, and do good. In saying this, brothers, I am not condemning prudent defence. This, too, is charity if it prevents further sin in our enemy.

24. The breadth of charity

There is more. Through its breadth, by which it expands without limit, charity becomes universal and rules over all human powers. Charity, governing all mankind’s natural, inferior affections, destroys what is evil in them, and protects what is good by completing, ordering and sanctifying it.

All human affections are, by their very limitation, defective and the cause of discord between human beings. Self-love, left to itself, is everyone’s enemy; love of one’s family, if exclusive, brings one family into opposition with another, and families into opposition with the whole people; even love of one’s country and nation, when it becomes an end in itself, is rendered unjust and harmful as it unleashes violence on other countries and nations. But all disciples of Christ and true Christians here on earth, who profess universal charity, are seeds of concord and peace scattered throughout mankind. First, they subdue self-love to love of all their fellows. Then, through meekness, hard work, sacrifice and the word, they teach others to do the same. Through their labour, family love flourishes without detriment to any other family or group of families. Finally, love of country, devoid of violence and pride, becomes meek and humble, and more sublime than ever through charity which tempers it and makes it true virtue, the law of justice, peace and wisdom.

This is the sublime way through which the work of the gospel in society is brought to the fruition proclaimed by the ancient prophets: Come and behold the works of the Lord, what wonders he has done on earth: making wars to cease even to the end of the earth. He shall destroy the bow, and break the weapons; and the shield he shall burn in the fire (Ps 45: 9–10).
This is the divine fire of charity used to burn the shields, melt bronze and reduce all weapons of war to ashes.

Universal charity is indeed the ruler and curb of all other affections which, unless dominated and held back by charity, puff themselves up and, like a stormy sea, roar and bellow in the heart of human beings. Charity alone commands and reproves affections where necessary. It says to each of them: Hitherto you shall come, and shall go no further (Job 38: 11). And suddenly, when affection begins to offend charity, it loses all its power.

25. The length of charity

So, Lord, your commandment is measurelessly broad. It calms the depth of the human heart and draws in all that the heart is capable of containing. Those who associate for the sake of the perfection of charity can say: The Lord has brought me forth, into a broad plane (Ps 17: 20).

But charity is also long and unbounded. We recognise the length of charity’s perseverance and unconquerable strength. Scripture says about it: Many waters cannot quench charity, neither can the floods drown it (Cant 8:7). The length of charity is indeed prolonged infinitely. As an end to itself, charity merits on earth, cleanses souls in purgatory and reigns in heaven: Charity never falls away, whether prophecies shall be, made void or knowledge shall be destroyed ... But when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall fade away (1 Cor 13: 9, 10).

Think for a moment, brothers, of the happiness, of the charity you have chosen to profess with your sacred vows. You promise never to cease loving, never to tire of doing good, never to abandon the good works you have begun, never to permit the sacred fire to be extinguished in your heart, or become lukewarm, or cold ashes. This perseverance of charity can only be obtained by one who knows, in the first place, that the charity we choose as life of our life, is patient, is kind: charity envies not, deals not perversely, is not puffed up, is not ambitious, seeks not her own, is not provoked to anger, thinks no evil: rejoices not in iniquity, but rejoices with the truth: bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things (ibid. 4–8). These are the beautiful customs, brothers, proper to the charity you wish to profess; they are the signs enabling you to distinguish it from every other affection which under false colours untruthfully simulates charity. You see, charity is not a simple mental concept, nor a sterile affection of the heart, nor any natural inclination. It is not found in words or in a flood of rhetoric but is, as we said, all action, all life, all deed. Let us love, therefore, in charity unfeigned (2 Cor 6: 6) or, as John says: Let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth. In this we know that we are of the truth (that is, of God) and in his sight shall persuade our hearts (1 Jn 3: 18–19). Even before this, the Master himself had taught us that charity consists in what is done: He that has my commandments and keeps them, he it is that loves me (Jn 14: 21). This is the true foundation of charity’s endurance and long-suffering perseverance. It is not an empty cry, nor an emotion which dies in the heart, nor the vanity and hypocrisy detested by the Lord. It is most real, loving activity, born from God, which watches and governs everything within us. It judges, rules and sums up everything in itself.

26. The length of charity in Christ

Brothers, this is the constancy with which God-charity loves. He has loved all his works ab aeterno, he loves them now, and he will love them forever. He never repents of his gifts. He says to Israel through Jeremiah: Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love: therefore have I drawn you, taking pity on you. And I will build you again, and you shall be built, 0 virgin of Israel. You shall again be adorned with your timbrels and shall go forth in the dances that make merry (31: 3–4). His words are addressed even more truly to the Church, of which Israel was only a figure; and to us, too, and to all mankind, provided we do not close our ears to such touching protestations of his most faithful love.

This love has never allowed itself to be conquered by human waywardness of any kind. Indeed, Christ appeared on earth, like Jacob, covered with goatskin, that is, dressed in the ignominious cloak of the world’s sin, clothing that was not his own. He paid our infamous debt with his own blood, which allowed the love of God to conquer death itself. As Scripture says: Many waters cannot quench charity, neither can the floods drown it (Cant 8: 7). The length, that is, the duration and longanimity of charity which must dwell and operate in all faithful imitators of Christ, is infinite because charity of its nature is infinite.

27. The height of charity

But the grandeur of charity does not end here. There is a third dimension, the height of charity, which is also revealed in its activity. This height is the sublimity of its end. Just as charity embraces all human beings and all things through its breadth, and extends to eternity through its length, so through its end it rises to a height which has no limit.

This follows from what we have said. We have seen the kind of end and the kind of object which are proper to charity: God and God-charity. Charity prior to the creature; revealed charity; charity transfused and glorified in the creature; charity which loves only charity because it finds nothing else proportionate to itself; charity that rests in itself alone; charity that rejoices only in itself. This is the extremely simple but most sublime, happy aim to which all the untiring activities of our charity should he directed.

We would not love ourselves, brothers, with the love which is charity if this love did not lead our souls to resplendent charity in heaven, where charity is itself our term and blessedness.
We would not love our fellows with the love which is charity if our affections and our endeavours in their regard did not have their eternal salvation as our ultimate aim for them. All the rays of charity are concentrated, in the one thing necessary about which Christ spoke to Martha. The one thing necessary consists in acting, as far as we are concerned, in such a way that intelligent creatures attain charity. All the activities of God’s charity towards his creatures are summed up and rest upon that one thing necessary. Almighty God created the universe to draw from it the glory of charity by building up the heavenly city. Hell itself serves this glory.

God preserves the whole of creation, and orders great and small happenings with his superlatively wise providence, for the sake of the eternal project in which he realises the predestination of his lovers for whose good everything and every event, in the world, work together (cf. Rom 8: 28).

He came down personally to earth and became flesh; he taught, suffered, died, rose again, ascended into heaven and sent the Spirit of Love to save mankind by gathering us around his Father to love and praise him for all eternity.
When all things shall be subdued unto him, then the Son also himself (as man) shall be subject to him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all. Then the Son shall deliver up the kingdom (redeemed human beings, sanctified and rendered immortal by him, and formed into a kingdom) to God and the Father (I Cor 15: 28, 24). The aim is that the God of Christ-man, the natural Father of Christ-eternal-Word, the source-principle of the most glorious Trinity (itself the principle or cause of all contingent existence) should render us blissful as we gaze on the ineffable sight of God, unveiled and manifest.

This is our end without end, and the consummation of charity, when God will be all in all. Union is indeed the work of charity, and there is no more ineffable union than that through which God renders himself omnia in omnibus. When we reach this union, we shall find every single part of ourselves — every fibre, every movement, every faculty, every act — alive and subject to Almighty God, that is, to charity, subsistent of itself, which divinises us. How can our minds conceive a greater, more intimate and stronger union than this, which itself is inconceivable!

Such is the infinite height of charity. And this immeasurable height of the end and aim at which charity of its very own nature launches itself is the life-giving principle which explains the order and project of providence. This principle, unfolding its secrets, eliminates irregularities and apparent contradictions in the government of the world. In fact, evil is encountered in this world created by God, evil which shows frightening power over all beings of every kind. Bodies crash together and break up; vegetation, fighting for ground and nourishment, impedes life and reproduction; animals kill and eat one another; humanity itself, bent under the servitude of sin, returns puffed up or humiliated to its original dust after unspeakable sufferings. Wherever we turn, we see disorder confused with order, vice mingled with virtue, disharmony and oppression and the bloody ruins of cities and empires; sorrow and crime abound. Everything seems to cry out, and a single word of anguish pervades the whole of nature: sunt lacrymae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt [All is choked with tears; no mind is free from mortal fears]. (Aeneid, 1: 462). Nevertheless, it remains true (and here we find the apex of divine Wisdom) that eternal love, the first cause of everything, did not appoint or make anything, hating it. Everything which exists or happens through Wisdom’s decree, and with its permission or activity or motion, is the effect of infinite goodness because it is the effect of infinite love.

We could never understand this if we were dealing with ordinary love. No human love is sufficient to explain this great mystery. Only divine charity holds the key to the enigma. Charity is supremely wise and as such has the highest end of all, beyond which nothing exists. Consequently, it is right and powerful enough to make all things serve itself and draw immense good from evil. From sins it draws the magnificent triumph of grace; from tears, sufferings and death, the joys of the resurrection and eternal bliss.

The immense weight of glory, which Almighty God prepared from all eternity as the outcome of charity transfused in creation, could not have been available unless the highest mind of all had subordinated all evil as well as all good to the increase, perfection and glory of charity. Love is proved above all in the crucible of evil, like gold in fire. It is both true and necessary, as the Apostle says, that every creature groans and travails in pain, even until now (Rom 8: 22). What rejoicing this painful birth must bring! And not only it, but ourselves also, who have the first fruits of the Spirit; even we, ourselves groan within ourselves, but not without hope. We are waiting for the adoption of the sons of God, the redemption of our body (ibid. 23). This is indeed the end of the universe and of its sorrows and hurts. This is what creation expects as it groans in pain: For the expectation of the creature waits for the revelation of the sons of God (ibid. 19). Christ had already spoken in this way to his disciples: A woman, when she is in labour, has sorrow, because her hour is come; but when she has brought forth the child, she remembers no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world. So you also now indeed have sorrow: but I will see you again and your heart shall rejoice.And your joy no man shall take from you (Jn 16: 21–22).

God’s charity rises above all present things. We have to see with the eyes of faith the same charity in all God’s powerful, just and wise works. God is equally good in all that he disposes because he is always charity. He is such through his essence; with which he works and foresees all things. And we shall indeed see this splendour of divine charity in everything if we consider the sublime end to which all things are ordered and necessarily linked.

Only those without the gift of faith, or those who limit their attention to particular things and events, without looking at them as a whole and in their final, lasting outcome, will be scandalised by what occurs in this world. In many of the things which take place, people without faith will simply be unable to discern the impulse and guiding hand of infinite charity. Charity in all its sublimity will be outside their range of vision.

28. The height of charity in our works of charity

And here too we discover with great joy a new, wonderful reality. Here we find the exemplar of charity whom we have to imitate in this chosen life of ours. On the one hand, the sublime end of charity, considered in the works of God, is the principle guiding God’s government of his creation; on the other, the same sublime end, applied to the works which we propose to carry out, is the principle proper to the order of charity. Charity, you see, reaches its height only when it is well-ordered and leads our actions, as we said, to the eternal salvation of souls.

But the uniqueness and extreme simplicity of the end does not constrict the activity of those who love; it does not exclude multiple kinds of good, beneficial actions. Precisely because charity, although unique and extremely simple, aims as high as possible, no good work is excluded. Beneath its final end lies all the space in the world for every intermediate end and good proper to human actions. But the supreme end exercises its dominion from on high over all other ends. Every non-final end, every non-final good, is tempered, ordered, sublimated and employed as a means for the action of charity. As Christ said, we are called to imitate God who does everything and permits everything in creation for love.

All that comes forth from him has to bear the mark of his essence, which is charity, and has as its end the eternal bliss of intelligent creatures. So, too, all our multiple, varied activities must be charity whether they are concerned with our temporal or intellectual life, or with the life which is above all other life — I mean moral virtue and holiness which finds its own fullness as it floods directly into charity.

We should not grow weary of helping others even in their material needs or in the field of education. These responsibilities, however, have to be taken as a means for obtaining true superior and eternal good for others. Only when benefits bestowed upon mankind have charity as their mother — who raises them up to heaven — can they be considered true benefits. Yes, temporal and intellectual charity exist, but they would not be charity if they were not directed to moral and supernatural charity.

29. The depth of charity

It seems impossible to take the praise of charity and the description of its wonders any further. But you remember the fourth essential attribute of charity, its depth, of which we still have to speak. Charity is indeed immeasurably broad, and capable of embracing all things; it is long through its immortality and perpetuity; it is high enough to rise to the infinite Being. But beyond all that, it is deep enough to penetrate the abyss, as the Apostle, who was borne to the third heaven, emphatically reminds us.

When we speak about penetrating the depths of the abyss, we are dealing with limitless humility. Anyone who is not humble without limit is unsuitable for the grandeur of charity. Pride is ignorant of charity, which has no part with the proud and does not enter any heart swollen with pride. The humiliation of the Son of God brought charity to the humble. Listen! Being in the form of God, [he] thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and in habit found as a man. He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross (Phil 2: 6–8). And St. Paul adds: For which cause God has also exalted him and has given him a name which is above all names (ibid.); this is the end and final term of charity.

The limitless height of this end requires as its indispensable condition, an unlimited depth of humiliation, and of sacrifice, which follows on humility. It was precisely to indicate this that victims in the Old Testament were burned. They were the holocaust of charity.

If, then, we come to comprehend the charity of Christ which is above all knowledge, as St. Paul prays, we shall also understand John’s words: In this we have known the charity of God, because he has laid down his life for us. And he adds: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren (1 Jn 3: 16). Charity thus becomes the friend of death, and of death encountered through charity in martyrdom, the greatest, witness to our faith. Hence love is strong as death, jealousy as hard as hell. The lamps thereof are fire and flames (Cant 8: 6). When I say ‘death’, I include all the sufferings of this life. They must not weaken our courage because they cannot weaken the courage of charity. The life of a lover — the life we choose, brothers — must be a life of struggle and suffering, of care for others and forgetfulness of self. Enrolling under the banner of charity, and trusting our Master’s teaching, we enlist in the Lord’s army. And we know that our Lord and Leader makes heroes of his weakest soldiers. This is not presumption. We do not hope in ourselves but in the Lord, as we said. Our hope comes from him and is strengthened by his valour. Each of us can say: If God is for us, who is against us? He that spared not even his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how has he not also, with him, given us all things? Who shall accuse against the elect of God? God is he that justifies. Who is he who shall condemn? Christ Jesus that died, yea that is risen again, who is at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us? Who then shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulations Or distress? Or famine? Or nakedness? Or danger? Or persecution? Or the sword? As it is written: ‘For your sake we are put to death all the day long. We are counted as sheep for the slaughter.’ But in all these things we overcome, because of him that has loved us. For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor might, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature. shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom 8: 31–39). This is the depth of charity; it is simply the depth of suffering in the midst of which charity’s most perfect and powerful act lives and shines.

30. The height of charity produces the depth of charity

Of its nature, charity draws strength to live in the midst of fire, and to shine more beautifully in the depth of sorrow as its activity in the creature receives through suffering its final form of perfection. But this comes only from its immeasurable height of which I spoke some moments ago. The height of charity produces the depth of charity because the end on which charity fixes its sights is superior to all things. Everything is subject to it, including pain; everything is made to serve it. As the Apostle says again: I reckon that the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come that shall be revealed in us (Rom 8: 18).

At present, this glory lies hidden within us, veiled by faith. One day, the veil will be removed and glory will burst forth within us in all its splendour. Then we shall see openly the quality and immensity of the end proper to charity.

What an end it is, which explains even the mystery of our Saviour’s death! As Paul says: Having joy set before him, [he] endured the cross, despising the shame, and now is on the right hand of the throne of God (Heb 12: 2). Surely everyone must desire this end, the source not only of the breadth and length of charity but of its depth which ‘penetrates the hidden sufferings of death and the darkness of the tomb’? This eternal end, which we can never desire with sufficient intensity, is God himself, essential charity, made of God’s substance; it has no term, but must rest eternally in itself.

Because all things are subject to it, charity has to extend over all of them. Its triumphant rays, reflected back from all created things and re-focused in charity form part of the fire of charity. Love for all means exactly this: to act so that everything may be directed towards final charity.

31. The dimensions of charity

If the charity of the God-Man had not winged its way to God the Father from whom it set out and whose glory it sought, it could never have penetrated so deeply into such unutterable, inconceivable sufferings. Christ would have tired of us and not withheld his just indignation against the filth, iniquity and fault of us all. But what he says to Israel through Jeremiah is very different: If the heavens above can be measured and the foundation of the earth searched out beneath, I also will cast away all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, says the Lord (Jer 3 1: 37). In other words, the Lord’s charity is higher than the space between us and the heavens, and deeper than the earth’s centre which no one has ever seen.

This is why Almighty God will never cast away the seed of Israel, as he says through the mouth of his prophet.
The heights of human pride are indeed great, but they are measurable; only the height of God is immeasurable. The depths of human abjection found in corrupt flesh are great, but the abyss of the penitent, long-suffering, dying humanity of our Redeemer is very much deeper.
Charity, which far out-distances every created thing, can triumph over all because everything is less than itself. And it does indeed triumph. Only charity can say: I have overcome the world (Jn 16: 33), and again: Fear not, little flock (Lk 12: 32).

Dear brothers, these are consoling words of immense comfort in our noble undertaking! They echo from everything we see around us, and supremely from the bloody yet glorious Cross which sums up in itself all I have said. In the cross, the saints have recognised the symbol of the four infinite dimensions of the charity of God and of Christ and of his disciples.

Let St. Thomas speak for them all:

Excessive love, let me add, is veiled under excessive sorrow, and the triumphant strength of charity is wrapped in the shroud of weakness and ultimate abjection while the rays of divine immortality grow dim in the deathly appearance of this last amongst men. Dear, dear brothers, may this great sign remain impressed in all our minds as a summary of all the sublime teaching about charity. May it be deeply inserted in our heart and in all the powers of our soul; by its strength may our hearts be made chaste and faithful for him who has espoused us with his blood, and may our powers be untiring imitators of his charity. Finally, may the glorious sign of the Cross of Jesus Christ, the instrument and symbol of such charity, be the seal of this prayer, this wedding-song of mine which today celebrates your happy marriage. Today, in the Institute of Charity, your virgin souls are joined unstained to the divine Spouse through a new, perpetual, indissoluble, happy and fertile bond.

Notes

(1) The section numbers, but not the subheadings, are Rosmini’s own.

(2) ‘Sometimes we use the word "apprehend" for "comprehend". In this case, it eliminates distance and implies nearness’ (St. Thomas Aquinas, In Eph 3; lect. 5) .