Charity patiently listens to a bore, answers a useless question, renders service even when the need is only imaginary, without ever betraying the least signs of annoyance. It never asks for exceptions or privileges for fear of exciting jealousy. It does not multiply nor prolong conversations which in any way annoy others. It fights antipathy and natural aversions so that they may never appear, and seeks even the company of those who might be the object of them. It does not assume the office of reprehending or warning through a motive of bitter zeal. It seeks to find in oneself the faults it notices in others, and perhaps greater ones, and tries to correct them. "If thou canst not make thyself such a one as thou wouldst, how canst thou expect to have another according to thy liking? We would willingly have others perfect, and yet we mend not our own defects. We would have others strictly corrected, but are not fond of being corrected ourselves. The large liberty of others displeases us, and yet we do not wish to be denied anything we ask for. We are willing that others be bound up by laws, and we suffer not ourselves to be restrained by any means. Thus it is evident how seldom we weigh our neighbour in the same balance with ourselves" ("Imitation," i. 16).
[X]
FIFTH CHARACTERISTIC
To refuse no reasonable service, and to accept or refuse in an affable manner
CHARITY is generous; it does everything it can. When even it can do little, it wishes to be able to do more. It never lets slip an opportunity of comforting, helping, and taking the most painful part, after the example of its Divine Model, Who came to serve, not to be served. One religious, seemingly in pain, seeks comfort; another desires some book, instrument, etc.; a third bends under a burden; while a fourth is afflicted. In all these cases charity comes to the aid by consoling the one, procuring little gratifications for the other, and helping another. Without complaining of the increased labour or the carelessness of others, it finishes the work left undone by them, too happy to diminish their trouble, while augmenting its own reward. "Does the hunter," says St. John Chrysostom, "who finds splendid game blame those who beat the brushwood before him? Or does the traveller who finds a purse of gold on the road neglect to pick it up because others who preceded him took no notice of it?" It would be a strange thing to find religious uselessly giving themselves to ardent desires of works of charity abroad, such as nursing in a hospital or carrying the Gospel into uncivilized lands, and at the same time in their own house and among their own brethren showing coldness, indifference, and want of condescension.
There is an art of giving as well as of refusing. Several offend in giving because they do so with a bad grace; others in refusing do not offend because they know how to temper their refusal by sweetness of manner. Charity possesses this art in a high degree, and, besides, raises a mere worldly art into a virtue and fruit of the Holy Ghost.
[XI]
SIXTH CHARACTERISTIC
To share the joys and griefs of our brethren
AS the soul in the human body establishes all its members as sharers equally in joys and griefs, so charity in the religious community places everything in common content, affliction, material goods driving out of existence the words mine and thine. It lavishes kind words and consolations on all who suffer in any way through ill-humour, sickness, want of success, etc.; it rejoices when they are successful, honoured, and trusted, or endowed with gifts of nature or grace, felicitates them on their good fortune, and thanks God for them. If, on the one hand, compassion sweetens pains to the sufferer by sharing them, on the other hand participation in a friend's joys doubles them by making them personal to ourselves. Would to God that this touching and edifying charity replaced the low and rampant vice of jealousy!