FRATERNAL CHARITY
[I]
CHARITY THE PECULIAR VIRTUE OF CHRIST
OUR Divine Saviour shows both by precept and example that His favourite virtue, His own and, in a certain sense, characteristic virtue, was charity. Whether He treated with His ignorant and rude Apostles, with the sick and poor, or with His enemies and sinners, He is always benign, condescending, merciful, affable, patient; in a word, His charity appeared in all its most amiable forms. Oh, how well these titles suit Him!—a King full of clemency, a Lamb full of mildness. How justly could He say, "Learn of Me, that I am meek and humble of heart"! His yoke was sweet, His burden light, His conversation without sadness or bitterness. He lightened the burdens of those heavily laden; He consoled those in sorrow; He quenched not the dying spark nor broke the bruised reed.
He calls us His friends, His brothers, His little flock; and as the greatest sign of friendship is to die for those we love, He gave to each of us the right to say with St. Paul: "He loved me, and delivered Himself up for me." Let us, then, say: "My good Master, I love Thee, and deliver myself up for Thee."
Religious, called to reproduce the three great virtues of Jesus Christ—poverty, chastity, and obedience—have still another to practise not less noble or distinctive—viz., fraternal charity. By this virtue they are not called to rise above earthly or sensual pleasures, nor above their judgment and self-will, but above egotism and self-love, which shoot their roots deepest in the soul. They must consider attentively the fundamental truths on which charity is based and its effects, as also the principal obstacles to its attainment, and the means to overcome them.