On Christian Charity

An excerpt from the book, Love One Another by Louis Colin, C.SS.R.

"Lastly, charity should be exercised even toward our worst enemies. Whether it be question of savage sectarians, persecutors of the Church, or invaders trampling down upon our country and torturing the population, of personal enemies, attacking our reputation, our property, our social position: the law promulgated by Christ, however hard it appears, remains sacred and untouchable: We must learn to forgive and to love. But, I say to you who listen to me: Love your enemies; do good to them that hate you. Bless them that curse you, and pray for them who calumniate you (Luke 6:27-28). We should love our enemies, not certainly in as much as they are unjust and wrongdoers toward us, but because they still remain, despite all, Christians and brothers and God’s creatures. Certainly we are obviously entitled to detest and condemn in others all those hideous feelings of wickedness, rancor, jealousy and brutality, of which we are the victims. Furthermore, we may defend ourselves, even attack, appeal to human justice, and in certain cases insist on reparation, but we must always avoid any spirit of hate or vengeance. Using that paradoxical turn of phrase which is habitual to Him, Jesus reminds us of our obligation, of not only forgiving–and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us (Matt. 6:12)–but even of acting as servants and doctors toward our enemies. You have heard that it hath been said: an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you not to resist evil: but if one strike thee on thy right cheek, turn to him also the other: And if a man will contend with thee in judgment to take away thy coat, let go thy cloak also unto him (Matt. 5:38-40). If we invoke the law of “an eye for an eye” against our neighbor, God will treat us in like manner. For if you will forgive men their offences, your heavenly Father will forgive you also your offences. But if you will not forgive men, neither will your Father forgive you your offences (Matt. 6:14-15). “Christian love embraces every creature by right. If someone should be to us, I will not say a stranger, but hostile; if he should hate us to the point of wishing to nail us living to a cross, we should not drive that person away, under pain of seeing Jesus crucified in our own heart.” (Gay, Vertus chrétiennes, “De la charité envers le prochain,”Part II) Following the example set by Christ, who, from Calvary’s summit, prayed for His enemies: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do, the true Christian knows no other form of vengeance than forgiveness and well-doing. Be not overcome by evil: but overcome evil by good (Rom. 12:21). Having proved ourselves a hundred, a thousand times ungrateful–criminals, perhaps–toward God; a hundred, a thousand times absolved and loaded with new graces, how can we show ourselves merciless toward our brothers who are less guilty than we? Remember the parable of the faithless servant whose debt the master had forgiven. When freed, he jumped at the throat of one of his own debtors and, turning a deaf ear to entreaties, commenced to strangle him. Thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all the debt, because thou besoughtest me: shouldst not thou then have had compassion also on thy fellow servant, even as I had compassion on thee. And his lord being angry, delivered him to the torturers until he paid all the debt. So also shall my heavenly Father do to you, if you forgive not every one his brother from our hearts (Matt. 18:32-35). Christian charity is so comprehensive that, transcending time and space, it descends to purgatory and mounts to Heaven. Love unites and fuses into a single wonderful fraternity the Church triumphant, militant and suffering. There is only one region to which charity does not extend: Hell, that cursed land whence charity is exiled forever; that sojourn of hate and despair. This time the break is total, the separation is final. There is no possibility of returning to the kingdom of predilection. This is the fiery abyss of those heartless beings who can no longer love, and who will never by loved by anyone. Does not this eternal absence of love constitute the worst punishment? The universality of charity neither excludes order nor variety. In the multitude of our feelings, there exists a hierarchy of values which must be respected. The principle of this hierarchy is derived from the very perfection of the beings whom we love, from the degree of their closeness to us, and from the measure of their physical and moral necessities. The more somebody, by his holiness, is God’s image, the friend of Jesus Christ, the more closely he is united to us by links of natural or supernatural relationship; the more piteous and miserable he is, the greater right he has by that very fact to our benevolence or to our mercy." (pp 48-50)