Giving and receiving love is a desire and a capacity that we all carry within us. Love is at the root of boundless generosity, but can also be at the origin of human drama when it is not reciprocated or misinterpreted. Our passions can be nourished by love or drive us away from true and pure love. It is always about how we allow love to take shape in our lives: does it make us grow towards others or rather withdraw into ourselves?

The only true reference point for love is found in Jesus, when He was asked what the most important commandment was, in light of the multitude of commandments and prohibitions contained in the Torah, which the Decalogue had previously translated into a book of rules and further elaborated. What was of divine origin had been given a very human interpretation. Which point would Jesus choose as the most important commandment from the more than 600 regulations in the Jewish law? His answer was nothing less than the core of the message He wanted to convey to us. It had already been heard in the Torah and by the prophets, but had been buried under the abundance of rules that had been added as concrete interpretations and applications. It sounded very simple, yet at the same time it was fundamental and essential to life: to love God above all else and our neighbour as ourselves. It became a double commandment, with priority given to love for God, because He is the true source of our love and loved us first. But at the same time, the second commandment was placed on the same level as the first: to love our neighbour as we love ourselves. God, our neighbour, and ourselves: all must be bathed in love, without any form of competition between them. We must only respect the order of priority.

Abbé Fraipont, founder of the “Home de la Vierge des Pauvres”  in Gatagara, Rwanda, a real icon of charity.

The least concrete, the least tangible, love for God, deserves our absolute priority and must become the source from which we give shape to our other, more concrete love for our neighbour and ourselves. Because we are all of divine origin, created by God, and called His children, love for our neighbour and for ourselves is a logical consequence of our love for and from God. How could it be possible to love the Father and at the same time hate his children? This was further reinforced by the Incarnation, when God himself became man in Jesus Christ, was literally present in our human nature and thereby deified it. And all this out of his love for us. The union between God and man was not a one-time event, but continues in time. It is in this light that Jesus said that everything we do for our neighbour is done to H (cf. Mt 25:40). God’s love, love for our neighbour, and love for ourselves are thus connected in a totally new way. It is all about the same love! Only the forms of expression will differ, so that we can say that they are distinguishable, but certainly not separable.

As human beings, it therefore remains our great task to preserve and cultivate unity in love in our lives. We cannot neglect one for the sake of the other.

In concrete terms, it comes down to letting love guide our actions and letting it shine through in the words we speak, in the actions we take, and in the decisions we make. It must be a reflection of the divine love we carry within us and which is given to us by God Himself. The strongest characteristic we can attribute to God’s love is that it is unconditional. This is perhaps where the distinction between God’s love and our human capacity to love is most clearly expressed. Our love is always limited by this conditionality, which so strongly influences and determines our thoughts and actions. We think and act in conditional terms, and our love is very often subordinated to this. “I will love you, on condition that …” Where this conditionality is totally absent is in the love a mother has for her small child. There, love is still pure and cannot fall into the pitfalls of conditionality. No conditions can be imposed on a new-born baby; how great would be the indignation if we were to notice this in a mother. It is with this unconditional love that we can best compare God’s love, although any comparison will still fall short, because God is always greater and more than we can conceive of Him. Because God is totally identified with His love, we will never be able to fully comprehend the greatness of God’s love.

The conclusion could now be that we need God’s love to raise our human love to a higher level. Although this sounds logical, we must immediately correct it, because then we bring our relationship with God to the level of usefulness, again a very human concept and attitude. For how often do we do something because we can derive some benefit or advantage from it? Utilitarianism is never far from our actions. In this way, we could come to regard prayer as something useful that brings us solace and can eliminate our human limitations in love. This, too, is a pitfall that we must avoid. We may pray to obtain something, we may share our concerns with God and ask Him not to abandon us. But when our prayer remains at this level, we are far from what it should be, namely opening our hearts to God’s love in order to grow in that unique friendship with God through Jesus Christ. “I no longer call you servants, but friends” (Jn 15:15), Jesus said at the Last Supper. These words are also addressed to us! Do we realize this sufficiently, namely that through prayer we are invited to share in God’s love and his friendship? It is from this participation in God’s love that our human love will be purified, strengthened, stripped of selfish tendencies, and gradually become a reflection of God’s love. This is why certain authors equate agape with caritas, because it is in caritas that we must love others in a divine way. The only motivation for loving others is simply because they exist. In caritas, there is no friendship or philia that drives us, and no eros that makes us passionately desire others. The only motivation for loving others, every other person, even those who do not suit me at all, who are not attractive but rather repulsive, is because they, just like me, are beloved children of the Father, fellow human beings, my brothers and sisters, in whose faces I must see the face of Christ himself. Even loving our enemy, which is totally contrary to our disposition, is only possible and only understandable when, with God’s grace, we allow our human love to be completely driven by His love, agape. This is the gracious gift we receive when we make room in our hearts for God’s love. We can repeat here the words of John the Baptist: “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30). My disordered self-love must become smaller in order to allow God’s love to grow more and more in me. It is a process of conversion that is only partly in our own hands: it is the work of God’s grace that we must allow to happen in us.

All this makes it clear that we cannot simply talk about charity in cheap terms, and that charity is more than just providing help and assistance. Only when love forms the basis of this assistance can we speak of charity. Otherwise, it remains mere philanthropy, however valuable and necessary this may be in many cases. But let us not be too quick to label everything as charity. Just as development aid was once seen as the alternative and modern interpretation of missionary work. Caritas is about love, which drives our actions, and missionary work is about bringing Jesus and His message to others. Following His example, we will also care for the sick, teach people, and see how we can improve their lives. But neither charity nor missionary work should be cut off from their roots, lest they be reduced to mere aid and development assistance. That is why there will always be a fundamental difference between what missionaries do and did and what many NGOs do. That difference lies at the core, at the roots, and concerns the basic attitude from which we think and act. If we remove these roots, we flatten and commercialize our actions, and in the end, it becomes nothing more than something determined and directed by the sterile rules of the world of management.

Caritas gives colour to our actions, and it is this colour that we must never lose or neglect. It is this colour that Christians must continue to give to the world, thereby adding value to their actions and the way they treat each other and their fellow human beings, in the choices they make and the ethical positions they take. They will not always be applauded for this in a world that often has a different set of values. But that remains their and our mission: to be precisely that salt and that light to which Jesus Christ continually calls us. Driven by love, we need not be afraid to sometimes swim against the tide. On our own, this is of course difficult, even impossible, but with and in God’s love we also receive the grace and strength to put this love into practice, even in difficult circumstances.

When, during this jubilee year, we are called to set out with hope and to remain prophets of hope in the world, despite everything that is happening, this is only possible if we allow ourselves to be driven by love. “Caritas Christi urget nos,” it is the love of Christ that compels and propels us. With Christ in the boat, we have nothing to fear, even if the storm around us is fierce. It is here that faith, hope, and love meet. But in the end, everything will flow together in love. “And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love” (1 Cor. 13:13). “Love never fails” (1 Cor. 13:8).

Bro. René Stockman,
Brothers of Charity

René Stockman