Can there be Charity without Mercy?

What exactly is "charity"? An idea? An action? A virtue? A disposition of the mind and heart?

Charity is all of those, and more. Charity can also be a way of life or a world-view. In fact, charity can be a state of being - and that is God. For as we know:

"God is love" 1 John 4:16.

If charity is love, and love charity, and God is love, than God is also charity.

But, echoing the Scriptures, who has ever seen God, but the Son, and those to whom the Son reveals the Father to?

So how are we to know what charity really is, or what it really means?

I have always found it very interesting that the Gospel of Matthew records the Sermon on the Mount ending with Jesus instructing us to "Be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect," (Matt 5:48) and the Gospel of Luke says in a similar fashion and yet differently, "Be merciful, just as [also] your Father is merciful" (Lk 6:36).

This is certainly insightful when it comes to contemplating what it means to be "charitable."

To "love" someone, to look at another in "charity" or with "charity," is to imitate our heavenly Father. We have been taught and believe that God is perfect. Yet, we know that we cannot be perfect, and certainly not in the same way that God is perfect, since he is infinite and beyond us even while he comes to us so intimately.

Certainly, this question has been raised often in the history of the Church - Lord, how are we to be "perfect"?

On of the first or most obvious answers is that we must be "merciful." The interchange found in the Gospels between "perfect" and "merciful" assists us in understanding that God's perfection, God's ultimate charity, the very being of the Blessed Trinity who is a Communion of Love between Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is a perfection and charity that is mercy.

Now, we have all heard that "the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom" (1 Cor 1:25) and "my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways" (Is 55:8). What is the context of these statements? St. Paul is speaking of the "paradox of the Cross," that the Son of God would become man and suffer and die for the sins of men so that we might have hope for eternal life. And Isaiah's passage states immediately before those words:
"Let the wicked forsake their way,

and sinners their thoughts;

Let them turn to the LORD to find mercy;

to our God, who is generous in forgiving." (Is 55:7)

The Lord has revealed that God's mercy is a mercy that can be surprising, sometimes even confusing, and often incongruent with what "human wisdom" might dictate. Yet, Sirach 2:18 says:

"Let us fall into the hands of the Lord

and not into the hands of mortals,

For equal to his majesty is his mercy;

and equal to his name are his works."

Here we should recognize that the glory and splendor that are proper to God who IS, cannot be separated from the mercy of God, which is both his wisdom and his works (charity).  We may often think of "justice" or "what is right" in a sense of retribution. We tend to have a sense that "every action has an equal and opposite reaction," and that this applies to all things, including human relationships and how we see and treat others. Retribution might seem like a term for someone who purposefully seeks revenge, or who goes to some length to "pay someone back" for an offense (such as trying to cause someone to lose his job, or making up falsehoods about someone so that she is disliked or unwelcome). Yet, the truth is that we often carry this type of attitude around with us in daily life, even when we may not realize it. Even small incidences of a friend who fails to show up for a meeting time, or a coworker who "drops the ball" and leaves you with all of the hard work, etc.. can bring us quickly to a point where we are at least hard-hearted toward that person for a while, if not that we desire to "return the favor" at some point. Even when we aren't acting out of revenge, per se, we might still have an attitude or disposition of vengeance. For example, perhaps later in the week that same friend tries to make up for the missed date by asking you to set up another time for meeting. Perhaps you agree, but then find that you have other things you might prefer to do when that meeting time comes. How quickly and easily we can justify calling that friend "apologetically" and saying that we cannot make it, and feeling very little guilt or remorse since it is "fair" considering that he or she did the same to us. Yet, if we paused to think about it, we should be all the more aware of how hurtful being stood-up can be, since it hurt us enough that we were upset with that friend. It is so silly, but we feel "justified."

This is what we can call "human wisdom," which is not God's wisdom. This is what we can understand as not God's justice, not the Lord's mercy, not our Father's charity, and not in line with the perfection that is Love, that is God.

Truly, I do not think that we can be charitable without also being merciful. There will always be things that we must forgive in one another. Even things that are in no way intentional or even personal choices, such as someone who might simply offend us because of body odor or because we find him or her unattractive. Perhaps we can keep in mind that while the cliche of "skin deep" can be no more than a cliche, it can also be a very real danger. If we see only what is on the outside, while our Father in heaven sees the whole person, especially the heart and soul, then can we really hope to be charitable if we are not also merciful, and merciful in the way that acknowledges just how similarly sinful we all are? We all share the common bond of humanity; and from that, we all share the fallen nature of sin, and even when we have received the great grace of Baptism, we still carry the concupiscence of our nature. Therefore, while there are many differences that set us apart from one another, there is also the common ground of being a sinful man before God, a creature who has failed and rebelled against his Creator. We all need mercy. We all stand in need of forgiveness, and a forgiveness that we cannot give to ourselves! Only the mercy, the charity, of the one who created us can heal us and restore us, can actually recreate us, can aid us in becoming more perfect. We must always keep in mind that if we should desire to love as God loves, and be perfect as our Father is perfect, than we must strive to be merciful as our Father is merciful.

May this last week of the Lenten season be a time for us to enter more deeply into that paradox of the Cross, into the mystery of the mercy of God. Perhaps we can receive the sacramental grace of Reconciliation, and find ourselves more intimately united with the wisdom of God that is always charity and mercy.

Love is a Noun That Becomes a Verb

For those of you who share in the need for perfection or the hunger for approval, let me say that I know the burden well. Whether it is achieving a high grade or making a good meal, many of us will work hard to improve and impress. However, we all know that the same fuel that drives us to impress can also be the tinder for disappointment and self-depreciation.

Essentially, the equation goes: A > B where C = B but if A < B, than C = 0.

A = Extremely high standards or expectations set for the self to accomplish

B = Achieving the minimum "high standard", usually above the average

C = The self

Please kindly keep in mind that math is something that I failed at horribly. Logic, I can handle. So.. not sure what happens when I try to combine the two. 

Anyway, the point is that it is not uncommon to equate one's self-worth with only the visible achievements or set goals that have been set forth, and to then in consequence find one's self-worth null if those achievements are not accomplished. 

What does this have to do with Love? 

Everything.

In the little discussion of self-worth and achievement, the underlying system that is at work is that there is a measurable value to an individual, and that it is measured in a system or hierarchy which the individual sets up. If the individual does not personally set forth all of that hierarchy, than the immediate family, the school, society and culture set up the rest. This means that value, which is a good, must be done, or requires action. Another way of saying it is that the good requires work, or must be shown or revealed by action. 

In general, many of us can probably agree with that system. We see hungry people, or homeless people, or people who need medicine or education; we understand that they cannot have these things unless other people assist them, and unless they themselves act to change their circumstances. 

However, we need to be cognisant of what isn't being said here; that good can exist de facto. If value or good had to be active, than many things could not be considered a good. I, for one, find many types of rocks to be very beautiful. I may be a nerd because of it, but the point is that the beauty is one that is still. It is good because it is beautiful, and not because it does anything. It can be a specific kind of good when it is used in the building of a house, for example, but that does not remove the good that it has simply by being a nice looking rock. 

Further, a baby cannot do much. We all know that they eat, sleep, pooh, cry, and that is about it. Of course they smile and laugh and respond, etc... but in a world of activity and accomplishment, babies seem to be on the bottom rung. Does that remove the value they have as a human being? God forbid! Of course it does not (though there are those who argue just that!). The point is that there is certainly and clearly a good that is inherent, innate, intrinsic to the person that cannot be nullified by his or her activity or inactivity. 

And therefore, to Love. Love, my friends, is not first and primarily a verb. We certainly do love. We act in love, or we can act unlovingly. We also speak, however, of being in love. This would imply that someone has a state of being which happens to be love. How is this possible? Is he or she constantly and at all times acting the love? Perhaps he or she is constantly feeling love, but there cannot be a perpetual acting of love. Unless, of course, your being (your existence), is acting and is Love. 

Hooray! God! Yep. He is always in-action, (and you can enjoy reading St. Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle another time, because it will take a few pages to go through it here) and he is always Love. He is Love. That is, Love is first and foremost a state of being, and that state of being is a Person, and in fact, that state of being is a Godhead, three Persons in One God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. St. John says it so simply: "Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love" (1 Jn 4:8). This means that Love is first a state of being, a knowing, a NOUN, before love is an action-verb. 

This is vitally important for us to digest because we are going to spend our entire lives trying to love; most of the time, we are going to feel that we are failing to love adequately, or we are being failed by others who do not love us adequately, and we are not going to feel the warm fuzzies of accomplishment about that high and lofty goal of being a "loving" person or being "in-love" our whole lives.

Guess what? That's ok. It's actually a very good thing. This is because there is only ONE who is Love, and that is God. And therefore if we are to partake in love, whether that is to love another or to be loved by another, to do something good for a friend or family member, to be charitable, to be "worthy of love," we have to participate in the Noun of Love before we can act in the verb. 

So... get to praying. I cannot say how strongly my heart has been convicted of the need to pray! We must meet Him who IS Love in his revelation; first and foremost, through his Church, and in the Church, through Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition. This is how Love has revealed himself to us. We are to dialogue with him, to get to know him, to understand that he is a proper noun. We are to receive from him the love that he gives, which is always faithful and always true, and then we will be able to give some of that love ourselves. We need to know Jesus more and more, to understand that a living relationship means that daily we are fed by Love. As long as we keep living, we are going to need to actively love. Therefore, as long as we keep living, we are going to need to return to the source, to Love himself, to receive from his bounty. 

The value, the good of the Creator, of the Word, of the Holy Spirit, of Love himself in the Blessed Trinity, is given to us, to his creatures. We possess that goodness as a gift! Yet, we have an obligation, duty and requirement because of that gift, to nourish it and to aid it in growing, in maturing, so that the gift becomes actualized to its full potential! What is this full potential? Beatitude. Eternal Life with God, who is Love. That is the aim and the goal of the goodness inherent in us. That is the reason that we must meet Love as the Noun who is the One who came to save us all from sin and death and lead us to eternal life. We cannot give what we have not received; Love has offered himself to us. Will we accept?

The true equation must be something like:

A = B = C

Where A = God, who is Love

B = Love given to men by God, the invitation to know him and love him in return

C = The fulfillment of each of us as persons, known and loved by God, returning that love with all that we have