Love and Charity

By Sean DeWitt

It has come to my attention that my use of the words Love and Charity in the article “What’s Hope got to do with it?” may have been slightly confusing. In my error, I wish to give a reflection on those two words: Love and Charity.

Love, as I talked about in the article on Hope, is the spoiled child of the three theological virtues. It is talked about almost without ceasing and for good reason. It is the greatest of the three (1Corinthians: 13). Unfortunately, most of that talk focuses on the emotional aspect of Love. Though a good concept to understand, the lovey dovey feel good image of what Love is falls short of its truth. All of this talk of Love as an emotion, has left us with many different kinds of love. As Pope Benedict XVI says in “Deus Caritas Est”:

Let us first of all bring to mind the vast semantic range of the word ‘love’: we speak of love of country, love of one’s profession, love between friends, love of work, love between parents and children, love between family members, love of neighbor and love of God. [2]

We often hear kids play with the semantics, making fun of their friends. “I love basketball.” “Ha, ha, Jimmy loves basketball. He wants to marry basketball.” “No, I don’t silly.” Unknowingly, kids realize the half truth. Love is not simply pleasure. Though closely tied to Love, certainly pleasure is not only felt in Love. Thus, the concept of tough Love, doing what is best for each other even though it may hurt a bit.

Along side this emotional driven love is Charity. Charity has been labeled as the action of Love—the verb of Love if you will. Most concretely seen in titles of charitable organizations, charity is any and all good works. Much like love, the action of Charity has mostly been attributed to material or basic needs assistance: food, clothes, shelter, medicine, etc… Though such aid is good, the ‘charity’ only serves half of our human needs. Again, Benedict pinpoints the problem beautifully:

The Church can never be exempted from practicing charity as an organized activity of believers, and on the other hand, there will never be a situation where the charity of each individual Christian is unnecessary, because in addition to justice man needs, and will always need, love. [29]

The Pope is talking here of the human need for Love, which should be present in charity (note the lower case ‘c’), or good works. As the Pope says: Love will always prove necessary, even in the most just society. [28] This is because Man will always have to battle loneliness, depression, and despair, the metaphysical equivalents of homelessness, hunger, and sickness. True Charity serves both parts of Man, honoring his dignity through genuine solidarity with his fellow man.

Ironically, Catholic Charities helps manifest the indistinguishable connection between Love and Charity. In fact, Love and Charity are one in the same. Catholic Charities, or Catholic Love we might say, recognizes the incomplete nature of material charity and emotional love. Yes, we provide funds, food and education. They are a necessary part of our service. And yes, we take pleasure in our service to others. That is why we work here. However, Catholic Charities provides material aid because of what it represents—the blossoming of God’s gift of Love to others [17]. We work because we can authentically Love people even when it may be difficult.

Catholic Charities exists because Charity is Love and Love is Charity. To talk of one is to talk of the other. A distinction of sorts could be made, but it would be love with a lower case ‘l’ and charity with a lower case ‘c’, not the fullness and truth of Love and Charity, which are one in the same.