Duties of Charity

a) Definition of Charity

Charity is a word derived from the Latin, and love is a word derived from the Anglo-Saxon, and both have the same meaning. Charity means love. Now love is not a mere affection or emotion. Love, strictly speaking, is an act of the will and it may or may not be associated with affection or emotion. Love is actively disposed to become an enduring thing, a habit, a virtue. But affections and emotions are, of their nature, passing. Affections and fine emotion are flowers that bloom sometimes upon the sturdy plant of love, but they are not the substance of the plant. Many of us must recall the pointed lesson contained in a school reader of a day when such textbooks were not entirely given over to butterflies and robins and John and Lucy and their nice dog, Fido. It is the story of two little girls and their mother. One daughter made a show of affection, and, with many a lusty hug, declared that she loved her mother very much; after which pious declaration she issued forth to play with little friends. The other child said never a word about love, but she washed the dishes and swept the floor before going out to play. The obvious point is that the second child was the one who had true love for her mother. Love is a will-habit that naturally tends to translate itself into action. Our Lord said, “If you love me, keep my commandments.” Which (saving reverence) is equivalent to saying, “If you love me, love me; show it in action; don’t merely talk about it.” Now, love may be love of concupiscence or love of benevolence. The love of concupiscence (and the word concupiscence has no evil meaning here: it means desire) tends to the possession of the object (person or thing) beloved. The love of benevolence tends to seek the welfare of the object beloved. The first seeks to win or have its object; the second seeks to do good to its object.

b) The Duty of Love

A man is bound to love his neighbor as himself. This ethical principle expresses a law of nature, a law of natural charity. It means that every individual man is in duty bound to love every other man, even his enemy, with the love of benevolence. Further, the principle means that this love of neighbor must follow the pattern of the love one has for oneself. The word “as” in the principle does not indicate equality, but similarity: it indicates love of self, not as the exact measure, but as the exemplar or model of love of neighbor. Man, to act according to reason, must wish for the goods that help him to achieve his last end. The principle of charity means that man must wish goods of this kind for his neighbor also. Of course, a man cannot love his neighbor with the same directness, the same intensity of interest, or to the same extent that he loves himself. For each man has an individual work to do, viz., the achieving of his own last end, God. This is his first, his special, and his greatest work; for this he was created; in this he must succeed, or fail the purpose of his being. Hence, he is bound, first and foremost, to do good to himself, to wish good for himself, inasmuch as he is bound by means of such “good” to reach his last end. Therefore, a man’s love for himself is greater than his love for his neighbor. This, as is obvious, is a requirement of rational nature. Consider it as illustrated in analogy: A kindly merchant is well disposed towards all the other merchants of his city. He wishes them well; he desires their success. He is willing to give them the benefit of his own experience in advice; he is willing to help them, within reasonable limits, by loans of money, goods, equipment. But he does not let his own business go to ruin,—and it is not in nature to expect him to be willing to ruin his business,—even to save the business of another merchant. Thus, it appears, the merchant in question has a greater concern, a greater love, for his own business than for that of his fellow merchants. And reason sees that it should be so. What, then, of heroism? Does not the fireman who rescues an invalid from a burning building— giving up by his act a sound, stalwart life for one that is broken and failing—love his neighbor more than himself? Not at all. The act of heroism procures a greater good for the hero than for the person saved by it. For the hero gains a greater good (provided his ordinary life has not thwarted it) than the life he gives up, and a greater good than life is to the rescued person. For one heroic act of charity merits a greater good in the life to come than a prolonged life of ordinary rational (i. e., virtuous) human conduct. But, though man must love himself more than he loves his neighbor, he must, as a matter of fact love his neighbor. This fact, already stated and explained, needs a short proof.‘‘All men are one in nature; all are made to achieve the same last end; they constitute one great family. Now, in this solidarity of human nature is rooted the duty of love of neighbor. A man is a traitor to his humanity if he wishes his neighbor to fail where he himself hopes to succeed. There is no competition in the quest of man’s last end; the success of one does not mean the failure of another; therefore, there is nothing in reason which can justify the wish that a neighbor fail; on the contrary, reason requires that each man, as an integral part of the great army or family of human beings, must wish that success to each and all that he seeks for himself. Such a rational wish is the love of benevolence fashioned upon, the love of self—and this is precisely what the law of charity commands. A”*Again: a man, as we have seen, has the duty of loving God, his last end. Now, a man cannot love God unless he loves those that God loves, i. e., all men. Therefore, a man must love all his fellowmen. But a man cannot love his fellowmen— an enormous multitude which is, for the most part, personally unknown to him—except by the love of benevolence. Hence a man must love his fellowmen by the love of benevolence. But the love of benevolence consists precisely in the wish and the will for goods profitable to one’s fellowmen in their work of attaining their last end, that is, in such goods as a man must rationally wish for himself. Therefore, a man must love his neighbor as himself.

c) Duties Consequent Upon Love

We fulfill the duty of love towards our neighbor by acts of humanity, beneficence, and gratitude. Our duties in these virtues may be called duties consequent upon love, or perhaps it would be more accurate to call the acts of these virtues the normal expression of love of neighbor. Just a word on each: i. Humanity is expressed in such acts of kindness as are easily performed, and of which the refusal would be a monstrous meanness. Examples of acts of humanity are: the giving of kindly advice, the indicating of a road or direction, the giving of a drink of water to one who asks for or needs it, the lending of aid in case of fire or sickness, etc. A man who would without reason refuse such kindnesses would deserve to be called “inhuman.” ii. Beneficence finds expression in the giving of alms, the lending of active aid or assistance which requires more effort or self-sacrifice than the works exacted by humanity. We see that the Spiritual and Corporal Works of Mercy are works of humanity and beneficence, and hence are duties required by rational nature. iii. Gratitude or thankfulness is the due and equal recognition and return for benefits bestowed. It be- longs to the equality and fitness of things, the sane balance required by reason. Other special duties (some of which touch justice, and will be mentioned again) should be indicated in this place: Man is bound to avoid leading his neighbor into error, especially into error as regards religion; nor dare a man do his neighbor harm by scandal, whether this be done by word of mouth, by writings and books, or by bad example. On the contrary, man is bound to help his neighbor to know truth with certainty, especially such truth as pertains to religion, and hence directly to man’s last end. Further, man must give his neighbor the benefit and encouragement of good example in all his words, writings, and conduct. In a word, man must obey the Golden Rule, which is positively expressed as, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” The same rule, negatively expressed, is, “Never do to others what you would not have them do to you.” Notice that one of these principles is a positive prescription of the natural law; the other is a negative prescription of prohibition. Recall what we have learned about the binding force of affirmative and negative natural laws.

Summary of the Article

In this Article we have learned the meaning of love of neighbor and have explained what is meant i go ETHICS by the precept of charity which comes from the natural law, viz., A man is bound to love his neighbor as himself. We have studied the rational proof of this law. Further, we have indicated certain duties that follow from the duty of love of neighbor.