The greatest work of charity is
evangelization, because "essentially, everything proceeds from Love and
tends towards Love. God's gratuitous love is made known to us through
the proclamation of the Gospel. If we welcome it with faith, we receive
the first and indispensable contact with the Divine, capable of making
us "fall in love with Love", and then we dwell within this Love, we grow
in it and we joyfully communicate it to others".
This Year of Faith
Benedict XVI has dedicated his Lenten message to the relationship
between faith and charity, entitled "Believing in charity calls forth
charity."
The Pope addresses the issue of the relationship between faith and
charity - an issue that has traditionally divided Catholic and
Protestant movements - starting from the definition of faith as
"response to the love of God," already developed in the Encyclical Deus
Caritas Est."Faith - writes Benedict XVI - is this personal adherence -
which involves all our faculties - to the revelation of God's gratuitous
and "passionate" love for us, fully revealed in Jesus Christ. The
encounter with God who is Love engages not only the heart but also the
intellect: "Acknowledgement of the living God is one path towards love,
and the 'yes' of our will to his will unites our intellect, will and
sentiments in the all-embracing act of love".
If, then, faith is " knowing the truth and adhering to it (cf. 1 Tim
2:4); charity is "walking" in the truth (cf. Eph 4:15). Through faith we
enter into friendship with the Lord, through charity this friendship is
lived and cultivated (cf. Jn 15:14ff). Faith causes us to embrace the
commandment of our Lord and Master; charity gives us the happiness of
putting it into practice (cf. Jn 13:13-17). In faith we are begotten as
children of God (cf. Jn 1:12ff); charity causes us to persevere
concretely in our divine sonship, bearing the fruit of the Holy Spirit
(cf. Gal 5:22). Faith enables us to recognize the gifts that the good
and generous God has entrusted to us; charity makes them fruitful".
It is '"the indissoluble interrelation" between faith and charity
to which the Pope's message is dedicated. " In light of the above, it
is clear that we can never separate, let alone oppose, faith and
charity. These two theological virtues are intimately linked, and it is
misleading to posit a contrast or "dialectic" between them. On the one
hand, it would be too one-sided to place a strong emphasis on the
priority and decisiveness of faith and to undervalue and almost despise
concrete works of charity, reducing them to a vague humanitarianism. On
the other hand, though, it is equally unhelpful to overstate the primacy
of charity and the activity it generates, as if works could take the
place of faith. For a healthy spiritual life, it is necessary to avoid
both fideism and moral activism".
" Sometimes we tend, in fact, to reduce the term "charity" to
solidarity or simply humanitarian aid. It is important, however, to
remember that the greatest work of charity is evangelization, which is
the "ministry of the word". There is no action more beneficial - and
therefore more charitable - towards one's neighbour than to break the
bread of the word of God, to share with him the Good News of the Gospel,
to introduce him to a relationship with God: evangelization is the
highest and the most integral promotion of the human person. As the
Servant of God Pope Paul VI wrote in the Encyclical Populorum
Progressio, the proclamation of Christ is the first and principal
contributor to development (cf. n. 16). It is the primordial truth of
the love of God for us, lived and proclaimed, that opens our lives to
receive this love and makes possible the integral development of
humanity and of every man (cf. Caritas in Veritate, 8)".
"Faith is a gift and response, makes us know the truth of Christ
as the incarnate and crucified Love, full and perfect obedience to the
Father's will and God's infinite mercy towards our neighbor, faith
rooted in the hearts and minds of the firm conviction that their This
Love is the only reality victorious over evil and death. Faith, as gift
and response, causes us to know the truth of Christ as Love incarnate
and crucified, as full and perfect obedience to the Father's will and
infinite divine mercy towards neighbour; faith implants in hearts and
minds the firm conviction that only this Love is able to conquer evil
and death. Faith invites us to look towards the future with the virtue
of hope, in the confident expectation that the victory of Christ's love
will come to its fullness. For its part, charity ushers us into the love
of God manifested in Christ and joins us in a personal and existential
way to the total and unconditional self-giving of Jesus to the Father
and to his brothers and sisters. "
"The relationship between these two virtues resembles that
between the two fundamental sacraments of the Church: Baptism and
Eucharist. Baptism (sacramentum fidei) precedes the Eucharist
(sacramentum caritatis), but is ordered to it, the Eucharist being the
fullness of the Christian journey. In a similar way, faith precedes
charity, but faith is genuine only if crowned by charity. Everything
begins from the humble acceptance of faith ("knowing that one is loved
by God"), but has to arrive at the truth of charity ("knowing how to
love God and neighbour"), which remains for ever, as the fulfilment of
all the virtues (cf. 1 Cor 13:13)".