Charity

Charity is the first Fruit of the Spirit. It is self-giving love as distinct from self-seeking love. Most of us understand love as desiring something or someone. This is what the Greeks called Eros, a powerful and necessary love which can grow into the self-giving love that the Gospels call charity. Through the practice of charity, we participate in God’s unconditional love, unwind habitual, negative attitudes and love people whom we may normally dislike or despise. Faith in God’s presence in others enables us to overlook personality and character defects that we find difficult. We begin to accept and one day, may welcome them.

Charity’s growth leads to total self-surrender to God and to the compassionate love of others. Charity grows as a result of acts of mercy, fidelity to prayer and through the way we relate to other people. Charity can overcome an enormous amount of negativity. The quality of Christ’s love is the source of charity’s vitality. The continuous tender and loving awareness of the presence of God is charity’s reward.

Accepting the movement of the Spirit enables the life of the Spirit to increase in us so that we are able to love one another as Jesus has loved us. God’s unconditional love is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit and continually shows love no matter what happens, even in the face of opposition and persecution.

Where does charity come from? It is infused in the silent seedbed of contemplative prayer. It is the sign of liberation from the false self and the growing awareness of the True Self. Flowing from this deepening insight is the acceptance of the present moment without trying to change it.