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Brookline Carmel Bulletin J M J T
May 8, 1960
Cogitatio Sancta
(Holy
Meditation)
Fraternal Charity
(Excerpts from a conference to
Tertiaries by Fr. Gregory, O.C.D.)
On one occasion in the life
of Christ the Pharisees tried to trap Him in His speech so they asked Him a
question: “Master, what is the
greatest commandment in the Law?”
Christ answered: “You should love the Lord thy
God with your whole heart, your whole soul and your whole mind. This is the greatest and the first
commandment and the second is like it – you should love your neighbor as
yourself.” Then He added: “On these two commandments
depends the whole Law and the prophets.”
On another occasion Christ simply said:
“A new
commandment I give unto you that you love one another.” The command
to love God and to love our neighbor is really only one because if you cannot
love your neighbor whom you can see and who is made in the image and likeness
of God you will never be able to love God Whom you cannot see. St. John writes rather pointedly: “Anyone who says he loves God and does not love his
neighbor is a liar.”
Charity is the bond of
perfection. Many people are probably
going to be surprised at the long time they will have to spend in Purgatory
because of their sins against charity. Love for our neighbor is not just a pious sentiment or a good
excuse for getting along with people.
It is a must and a necessity in the spiritual life, for without it there
is no spiritual life, no matter how many prayers we piously utter or how many
Masses we attend. We are all children
of God and brothers of Christ, and we have to love each other accordingly. It is really the only way we have of showing
Christ that we love Him. Real love for
our neighbors is a foretaste of heaven, for in heaven all the virtues will
disappear except charity. Love alone
will remain. That is why people who do
not love their neighbors will have to spend so much time in Purgatory – our one
concern in heaven will be to love, and if we have not become used to this on
earth, we will have to learn how in Purgatory.
The command to love our
neighbor comes directly from Christ: “You should love your
neighbor as yourself.” St. John
of the Cross tells us that at the end of life we are going to be judged by
love. In other words, our lot for all
eternity will be determined according to the way we have expressed our love for
Christ in the person of our neighbor.
At the final judgment we will be told the reason that we are being
admitted into heaven or sentenced to hell.
“Come, blessed
of my Father, take possession of the Kingdom prepared for you from the
foundation of the world, for when I was hungry you gave me to eat, I was
thirsty and you gave me to drink, I was a stranger and you took me in, naked
and you covered me, sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to
see me.” Of course, we do
not do these things directly to Christ, but He tells us: “As long as you did any of
these things to the least of my brethren, you did them to me.” On the other hand, those who have not
expressed their love for Christ in the person of their neighbor will be
condemned to hell for all eternity. The
person we refuse to help, the neighbor we like to criticize, the person we try
to avoid, is in reality none other than Christ Himself.
There are various ways we
can test ourselves to see if we are loving our neighbor. First of all, we might ask ourselves if we
are ever guilty of rash judgment. Rash judgment is the willful suspicion of another person’s
actions without a serious or sufficient reason. It is also opposed to justice, because every person has a right
to his good name until he is proved guilty.
St. Paul simply tells us: “Think no evil of others.” Yet it is remarkable how we put two and two
together and see evil where it may not exist.
It is so easy to make mistakes when we are judging people, because we
are not sure of all the circumstances.
God is one day going to judge us according to the way we judge
others. If we are kind and forgiving in
our judgments and try not to see blemishes in our neighbor’s character, God
will treat us in the same way. But if
we are harsh and inclined to be rash in judging others, we can expect God to
treat us accordingly when we stand before Him on Judgment Day.
It is also a sign that we
do not love our neighbor if we are inclined to have tendencies towards detraction. Detraction is making known the secret faults
of others without a good reason. It
very seldom happens that we can honestly say we have a good reason. If a man were running for a public office
and he had a vice that would be harmful to the common good, we would be obliged
to mention it to others who might not be aware of it, but this is an
exception. It is also possible to
commit a sin of detraction without actually mentioning a person’s faults. This can be done by insinuation. The line usually runs somewhat as
follows: “Now, I really didn’t say she
did it – but…”
When the Pharisees were
going to stone the woman caught in sin, Christ invited the one who was without
sin to cast the first stone. If you
have never committed a sin in your life, you have the right to mention the sins
of others. Yet the Gospel declares that
any one who says he is without sin is a liar.
In the last analysis, you can never be absolutely sure whether a person
is guilty of a fault. You are never
sure what his motives were. He may even
think he is doing the right thing. If
one of the conditions required for the commission of a serious sin were
lacking, he would not be guilty of a serious sin, even though it might seem so
to us.
It is also easy to commit
sins against charity by gossip.
Whenever we begin to talk about others, there is always the tendency to
concentrate on their weak points. There
is no such thing as idle gossip. Gossip is
always active because
good names and reputations are ruined.
Then, too, we all like to add a few details to make the story more
interesting. It is often impossible to
be sure whether we are repeating the truth or what has been added to it. Someone once said that women do not repeat
gossip – they improve on it as they pass it along. St. Teresa had the reputation of always
defending the absent. She says: “It gradually became known that when I was present
the absent were safe.”
Finally, we can easily
commit sins against charity in the home.
It is amazing how some people will try to get along with total strangers
but are not kind towards the other members of their own family. Little
expressions like “thank
you” and “please” that are
used among strangers should be used just as much in the home. A common way of sinning against charity in
the home is to hold grudges or refuse to speak to other members of the
family. We can learn from children how
to forget wrongs as soon as they happen.
(An amusing example of how quickly children forget a wrong – or what
they imagine to be a wrong – is given by Jean Kerr in her book Please Don’t Eat the Daisies. “I do read in textbooks that even an occasional
spanking tends to make a child feel insecure.
This may be so. On the other
hand, if a child really needs a whacking and doesn’t get it, I feel very
insecure. Normally, our boys accept
discipline with resignation, even detachment.
There was a night, though, when the twins had been sent to their room
for some infraction (they had removed the caps from a whole case of beer, as I
recall) and we could hear revolt brewing.
Johnny muttered: ‘Well, I’m not
going to give her any more kisses.
Col, you tell her you won’t give her any more kisses either.” And then I heard Col say, in his croaky
little voice, ‘I couldn’t do that. It
would break her heart.’”)
We do well to meditate
often on the brief sermon of St. John to his followers: “Little children, love one another, nothing
else really matters.” The Liturgy of
Holy Thursday teaches the same lesson as it repeats, during the washing of the
feet, “Ubi caritas et amor, ibi Deus est” – “Where charity and love is, there
God is.”
* * *
In London, there is a
museum, which contains a stuffed fish in a glass case. Beside the case there is a little card which
reads: “I would not be here if I had
kept my mouth closed.”
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