The Only Thing Truly Needed: Charity
With his first Encyclical Deus Caritas Est, the Holy Father Benedict XVI has invited the faithful to rediscover the unique and fundamental gift of love. On the occasion of the anniversary of the death of the Venerable Cardinal John Henry Newman (11 August 1890), it seems appropriate to recall certain thoughts in Newman's preaching on charity or love which have lost none of their freshness and timeliness.
Faith and love
Newman would often repeat that we were created in order to love: "We love for no cause beyond itself: we love, because it is our nature to love; and it is our nature; because God . . . has made it our nature . . . ". He stressed that love alone can give true meaning and fullness to life.
Our real, true happiness is not to know, to influence or to seek, but to love, hope, rejoice, admire, venerate and worship. Our real, true happiness lies in the possession of those objects in which our heart can rest and be satisfied.
Although Newman was aware of the pre-eminence of love, he preached on faith more often than on love. He was convinced that faith is the way to develop Christian love. Faith and hope are two aids that help us to find the way to love and to advance in love. The first grace is faith, the latter is love; first comes zeal, tenderness follows . . . May we learn to bring all the graces within us to fruition; with fear and reverence, vigilant and in a state of continuous conversion because Christ comes; with joy, gratitude and without fear of the future, because he has come.
At the same time, love is the noblest of God's gifts because it is inexhaustible. In this perspective, as Newman demonstrates in his sermon on Faith and Love, love exceeds faith and hope.
"Faith and hope are graces of an imperfect state, and they cease with that state; but love is greater, because it is perfection. Faith and hope are graces, as far as we belong to this world — which is for a time; but love is a grace because we are creatures of God whether here or elsewhere, and partakers in a redemption which is to last for ever. Faith will not be when there is sight, nor hope when there is enjoyment; but love will (as we believe) increase more and more to all eternity". Love will have no end.
Love fashions the soul and is the magnetic force that attracts all the other virtues. "We believe in God's Word, because we love it; we hope after Heaven, because we love it. We should not have any hope or concern about it, unless we loved it; we should not trust or confide in the God of Heaven, unless we loved him".
Faith, then, and hope must be sealed and permeated by love. Living by faith in daily life is not always easy; we often need the courage to swim against the tide. We sometimes feel a certain disinclination for the task. To those who ask themselves the reason for all this, Newman — in his sermon Love, the One Thing Needed gives this simple answer: "Clearly because we are deficient in love".
Lastly, love leads to the destination of our earthly pilgrimage. Newman proclaimed "that faith can but put us above the world, but that love brings us before God's throne; that faith can but make us sober, but love makes us happy".
Genuine love leads to unity. "It is eternal Charity which is the bond of all things in Heaven and earth; it is Charity wherein the Father and the Son are one in the unity of the Holy Spirit; by which the Angels in Heaven are one, by which all Saints are one with God, by which the Church is one upon earth". Unity is the fruit of love.
Love for one's neighbour
Cardinal Newman was always critical of a concept of love that remained too theoretical or vague. In his sermon Love of Relations and Friends, he blamed all those who spoke at length about love but neglected their neighbour in their daily duties.
He described as "absurd" the writers who "talk magnificently about loving the whole human race with a comprehensive affection, of being the friends of all mankind, and the like. Such vaunting professions, what do they come to? That such men have certain benevolent feelings towards the world — feelings and nothing more — nothing more than unstable feelings, the mere offspring of an indulged imagination, which exist only when their minds are wrought upon and are sure to fail them in the hour of need. This is not to love men, it is but to talk about love".
Genuine love for humanity is demonstrated by practical actions, for our neighbour first of all, with whose gifts and shortcomings, merits and errors we are well acquainted.
"The real love of man must depend on practice, and therefore, must begin by exercising itself on our friends around us, otherwise it will have no existence. By trying to love our relations and friends, by submitting to their wishes, though contrary to our own, by bearing with their infirmities, by overcoming their occasional waywardness by kindness, by dwelling on their excellences, and trying to copy them, thus it is that we form in our hearts that root of charity which, though small at first, may, like the mustard seed, at last even overshadow the earth".
Newman considered "the cultivation of domestic affections", that is, the love of relations and friends, as "the source of more extended Christian love". "Domestic affections", lived in a real community with others, are a school that demands acts of self-giving and self-denial, which make love strong and persevering.
As an example of mature love, Newman takes the Apostle John, who more than any other put love at the centre of his life and work.
"Now, did he begin with some vast effort at loving on a large scale? Nay, he had the unspeakable privilege of being the friend of Christ. Thus, he was taught to love others; first his affection was concentrated, then it was expanded. Next he had the solemn and comfortable charge of tending our Lord's Mother, the Blessed Virgin, after his departure. Do we not here discern the secret sources of his special love of the brethren? Could he, who first was favoured with his Saviour's affection, then trusted with a son's office towards his Mother, could he be other than a memorial and pattern (as far as man can be) of love, deep, contemplative, fervent, unruffled, unbounded?".
Newman criticized harshly those religious trends in which sentimentality predominated. This does not mean, however, that he proclaimed or cultivated an arid love — far from it.
In his sermon: St Paul's Gift of Sympathy, he shows how the Apostle was full of sincere and passionate love for the people and how, through love itself, he was able to win their hearts.
Paul, who lived in profound union with Christ, was also full of a deep and human love for his friends and collaborators. He longed to see them, he suffered with them and he was deeply saddened by the infidelities of some. He was marked by a sensitive empathy that shone out through the sincerity of his relations.
"He, in a word, who is the special preacher of Divine Grace, is also the special friend and intimate of human nature. He who reveals to us the mystery of God's Sovereign Decrees, manifests at the same time the tenderest interest in the souls of individuals".
In a letter to his Anglican friend, John Keble, Newman wrote that the first duty of love was to seek to enter into the minds and sentiments of others. This of course is only possible when our relations with others are marked by respect and reverence.
No one truly loves another person unless he feels a certain reverence for him. When friends violate this contained affection, they might continue to stay together for a while, but they have broken the bond of union. It is mutual respect that makes friendship endure. Respect is part of the essence of love.
Love and truth
Newman explains the distortion of the concept of love through religious liberalism, for example, in his sermon Tolerance of Religious Error. In this intervention he starts from the universal maxim that when we place ourselves and not God at the centre, we frequently tend to have one-sided attitudes.
"Be our mind as heavenly as it may be, most loving, most holy, most zealous, most energetic, most peaceful, yet if we look off from him for a moment and look towards ourselves, at once these excellent tempers fall into some extreme or mistake. Charity becomes over-easiness, holiness is tainted with spiritual pride, zeal degenerates into fierceness, activity eats up the spirit of prayer, hope is heightened into presumption".
Newman held that it is relatively simple to cultivate certain virtues, particularly when they are channelled in the spirit of the time. One virtue easy to practise is tolerance for others. Many have a deep esteem for this noble conduct, indispensable for the peaceful co-existence of human beings. But they forget about the virtues that concern firmness in sticking to principles and thereby tend not only to tolerate the person who errs but also the error itself.
The Apostle John exemplarily combines respectful love for man and zeal for the truth, and for this reason Newman held him up to the eyes of Christians as a pathway and model.
"So far were his fervour and exuberance of charity from interfering with his zeal for God, that rather, the more he loved men, the more he desired to bring before them the great unchangeable Verities to which they must submit, if they would see life, and on which a weak indulgence suffers them to shut their eyes. He loved the brethren, but he 'loved them in the Truth' (III Jn 1). He loved them for the Living Truth's sake which had redeemed them, for the Truth which was in them, for the Truth which was the measure of their spiritual attainments. He loved the Church so honestly that he was stern towards those who troubled her. He loved the world so wisely that he preached the Truth in it; yet, if men rejected it, he did not love them so inordinately as to forget the supremacy of the Truth, as the Word of the One who is above all".
Love and truth are not opposed but — on the contrary — are in need of one another: truth without love would be cold and harsh, love without truth would end in blind sentimentalism.
In his time, Newman saw realistically that there were many who followed John in his lovingness but few who upheld John's zeal for the faith. He complained that numerous Christians tend to have ambiguous ideas about God and about the Church.
Consequently, Newman continued, "no wonder that they ungird their loins and become effeminate; no wonder that their ideal notion of a perfect Church is a Church which lets everyone go on his way, and disclaims any right to pronounce an opinion, much less inflict a censure on religious error".
This concept of charity infected by religious liberalism cannot, Newman claimed, comply with Revelation. He therefore says: "Here then lies our want at the present day, for this we must pray — that a reform may come in the spirit and power of Elijah. We must pray God thus 'to revive his work in the midst of the years'; to send us a severe Discipline, the Order of St Paul and St John, 'speaking the Truth in love', and 'loving in the Truth' . . . Then only will Christians be successful in the fight . . . when they condense their feelings by a severe discipline and are loving in the midst of firmness, strictness and holiness".
Newman was opposed to any superficial discourse on love. He would often say that those who pray fervently and are sincerely committed, can grow and develop in true love of God and neighbour, for only with the help of grace, infused in our hearts as a seed in Baptism, is it possible to practise charity properly.
© L'Osservatore Romano
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