Quinquagesima Sunday 22 Feb 2009 Sermon

Quinquagesima Sunday 22.2.09 The greatest of these is love

St Paul makes an interesting point in his discourse about charity. If I give away all that I have, and even give my body to be burnt... yet have not love, I am nothing.

We might think that giving away one’s possessions must be a good act, and therefore must make the person giving a good person. Surely, even God would be impressed with such an action? Apparently not.

Man looks at appearances; God looks at the heart.

If I do a generous act but am not generous in my heart then I am doing a purely mechanical act and it cannot convey any spiritual merit or make me any better than I was before.

But if my heart is moved by some desire to please God (thus, charity) then the same action will take on a whole new meaning. This explains why the widow’s mite was worth more than the spare change of the rich.

(It also explains St Therese’s little way and the whole idea of how one obscure person can do more good than an army of do-gooders).

Charity as a virtue is that quality infused in us by God, a direct sharing in His own inner life, that motivates and enables us to do good. It begins with wanting what He wants; desiring what is good – what is in the mind of God. As He loves my neighbour so I will come to love the neighbour too.

This is how we can live up to the high standards set by St Paul: being patient, kind, feeling no envy, never perverse, nor proud, nor insolent, cannot be provoked, does not brood over injury, takes no pleasure in fault of others... sustains, believes, hopes, endures to the last.

It comes to what we want, rather than how we feel. Charity is an act of the will essentially. It is what we want to happen; what we are trying to achieve that counts.

Charity is the point on which we are judged. At the end of our lives God will ask us what have we done, and why did we do it? It is what is in our hearts that counts.

If we have kept the flame of charity alive, at least partially, then we have done enough to be saved. If the flame has gone out, then we have died inside and cannot be saved. Love God, Love Neighbour. If we get one right the other will follow.

So it is vital we cultivate that flame, that divine gift, and make sure that it increases.

We can pray for Charity, that God will grant us more of it, and our prayers public and private always make this request.

We can exercise Charity and we must, or through lack of use we will lose it. Our hearts will grow cold.

All the while we are trying to make our acts of charity more perfect in terms of their motivation. We do good to please God above all else. This would not be widely understood.

We might think that we do good to please people. If I feed a poor man I am trying to please him, and rightly. But I am also and even more so doing it to please God because He wants me to do it.

With this extra layer of understanding we can offer all things to God’s glory, not just obvious acts of charity but every act that we do, and even everything that happens to us. To please Him becomes our life’s work, and in that light everything else makes sense.

May the Lord open our eyes, as for the blind man, to see this truth.