If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

— John 14:15

Either before you arrive or as you wait for class to begin, find this short passage from Sacred Scripture in your Bible or through an online search. Reading it will prepare you for this week’s material.

— 1 Corinthians 13:1–13

O God, our Father, you sent your Son to offer his life for the salvation of the world. Pour out your Holy Spirit upon us and fill our hearts with love of you that we might hold fast to your commands and attain the promised reward of heaven. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

As you watch the video lesson, refer to these key highlights. Feel free to use the space provided to take notes.

• Love is the heart of how we live out the Christian faith. Christ gives us a double command to love God and our neighbor. The virtue by which we fulfill this double command to love is called charity.

• Charity is supernatural in two important ways: in the way it comes about and in what it empowers us to do.

• God does not love us because we are good. Very often, we are not good! Rather, he loves us even when we are sinners because he is good.

• The Christian tradition has long understood this virtue of charity in terms of friendship.

• If we are friends with God, we will obey his commandments and worship him as he asks us to. Therefore, friendship with God, obedience to his commands, and divine worship are all connected.

• The best way we worship him, and therefore love him, is through the Mass. This can be compared to a family meal where loved ones gather to be together, but with the Mass, it is the whole human family God is gathering.

Wisdom of the Saints

The school of Christ is the school of charity. On the last day, when the general examination takes place, there will be no question at all on the text of Aristotle, the aphorisms of Hippocrates, or the paragraphs of Justinian. Charity will be the whole syllabus.

— St. Robert Bellarmine

Take a moment to go through these questions with the group. For larger classes, divide them up into partners. Answers are provided to assist you in leading discussion.

1. What is charity?

   Charity is one of the theological virtues, along with faith and hope. Charity is love. It is the “virtue of love” by which we fulfill Christ’s double command to love God and love our neighbor.

2. What does supernatural mean and how is charity supernatural?

   Supernatural means something that is beyond, or flies above, human nature. Charity is supernatural in two important ways: in the way it comes about (from God) and in what it empowers us to do (sharing in God’s own love of himself).

3. If faith supplies the beginnings of the Christian life, how does charity supply its perfection?

   Charity “informs” or shapes the acts of faith and hope that we make, animating them and giving them the right motive and direction so that we actually reach out in love toward the object of our belief and hope.

4. Even though God desires friendship with us, we are not equals with him. What two other things must we do to show our love for him?

Even as God draws us into his divine life so we can become friends with him, we remain creatures, while he remains the creator. Thus, as creatures who are made friends of God, we still owe various things to him in justice. If we love God, we will not just be friends with him but obey his commands and worship him and him alone, and in the manner he asks us to (chiefly through the Mass).

1. How does the celebration of the Eucharist (the Mass) constitute the principal form of Christian worship?

Christ established the Holy Mass at the Last Supper when he blessed the bread and wine and gave it to his disciples, telling them it was his Body and Blood and asking that they “Do this in remembrance of me” (Lk 22:19).

The Mass is the sacramental re-presentation of Christ’s sacrifice on Calvary and the means by which the Risen Lord communicates his life to us. Other forms of worship, including personal prayers of praise, thanksgiving, and petition, draw their life from the Eucharist and lead back to it.

Catechism Connection

The practice of all the virtues is animated and inspired by charity, which “binds everything together in perfect harmony” (Col 3:14); it is the form of the virtues; it articulates and orders them among themselves; it is the source and the goal of their Christian practice. Charity upholds and purifies our human ability to love, and raises it to the supernatural perfection of divine love.

— CCC 1827

Discuss these questions with the group, pair them with a partner, or ask them to meditate on their own.

1. How does it make you feel to know that God does not love you for any good you do but rather just because he is good? What comfort or freedom does this give you?

2. What does it mean to you to be a friend of God? Answer in plain language.

3. What is one way you try to show your love for God in your ordinary, everyday life?

After concluding your group discussion, return to watch the second video where converts to the Catholic faith discuss their conversion and how they live today as Catholics.

Rome to Home

God does not love us because there is some reason that causes love. God loves us because He Himself is love, and love tends to spread and give by its nature.

— Pope Francis I, Weekly Audience, June 14, 2017

Charity: One of the theological virtues, along with faith and hope. It comes from the Latin word for love, caritas; thus, it is the “virtue of love” that informs or shapes the acts of faith and hope we make, animating them and giving them the right motive and direction so that we actually reach out in love toward the object of our belief and hope.
Supernatural: Something that goes beyond, or flies above, what we are naturally capable of.

Re-Presentation: To make present again, used in the context of the Mass (the sacramental re-presentation), which makes Christ’s sacrifice on Calvary present again in our own lives.

God’s Word

Let all that you do be done in love.

— 1 Corinthians 16:14

O my God, I love you above all things with my whole heart and soul, because you are all good and worthy of all my love. I love my neighbor as myself for the love of you. I forgive all who have injured me, and ask pardon for all whom I have injured. Amen.

This serves as a review of the material that your students can read after each class, but it may be helpful for you to read as well. Consider reading it before each class to better prepare you for group discussion.

Love is the heart of how we live out the Christian faith. Writing to the Christian community at Corinth, St. Paul emphasized precisely this: “Faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love” (1 Cor 13:13). And then he adds: “Make love your aim” (14:1).

Jesus himself says in John’s Gospel: “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (Jn 13:35). And further, “If a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. He who does not love me does not keep my words“ (Jn 14:23–24).

And, of course, Jesus gives us a double command to love: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself” (Lk 10:27).

The virtue by which we fulfill this double command to love is called “charity,” which comes from the Latin word for love, caritas. We might say charity is “the virtue of love.”

When we say that charity is a theological virtue, we mean that it is supernatural; that is, something that goes beyond, or flies above, what we are naturally capable of. Charity is supernatural in two important ways: in the way it comes about and in what it empowers us to do. It comes about as a supernatural gift from above, from God himself. He infuses it into our hearts, as St. Paul says in Romans 5:5: “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.” And when we receive this gift, we are then made capable of sharing in God’s love of himself; that is, we begin to love God not only as the cause of all that exists, as the creator who is infinitely above us, but as our Father. In other words, we learn that he is making us his adopted sons and daughters, his friends, in a personal relationship of love with him.

This is why the First Letter of St. John says: “We love, because he first loved us” (1 Jn 4:19). In loving us even while we were in sin, separated from him, God heals and restores us, and he fills us with his love, the very love with which we love him and all whom he loves.

This reveals a profound and important truth to us: God does not love us because we are good. Very often, we are not good! Rather, he loves us even when we are sinners because he is good. So it is the love of God that makes us good, and the effect of this in us, in our hearts and our souls, is the virtue of charity. God transforms our hearts from the inside so that, although we formerly, as sinners, did not love God above all things, when we receive his gift of divine charity, we begin to love God above everything else.

The Christian tradition has long understood this virtue of charity in terms of friendship. When God speaks his divine truth to us, and when he…loves us with his divine love, he communicates something of his own life to us. He draws us into what he knows and loves as he shares his knowledge and love with us. This is what friends do; they share life with each other—they share what they know and love. In charity, then, God establishes us in friendship with himself, a union with him based on knowing and loving the same things with him.

Like faith and hope, therefore, charity forms one of the pillars of the Christian life. In fact, we could say that charity is the most important pillar—it is the essence of the Christian life. St. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13: “If I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.”

While faith constitutes the beginning of the Christian life, charity supplies its perfection and soul. Charity “informs” or shapes the acts of faith and hope that we make, animating them and giving them the right motive and direction so that we actually reach out in love toward the object of our belief and hope. The belief of faith will give way in the next life as it passes over to the vision of what we now believe; the expectation of hope will give way as it passes over to the enjoyment of what we now anticipate; but the friendship of charity will remain, as the love of God that we enjoy now will only intensify as we pass from this life to the next. Think about it: why would we need hope and faith in heaven if we are with God, seeing him face-to-face? We will have nothing left to hope for since everything we’ve ever wanted is right before us, nor will we have anything to believe on faith because we will see him face-to-face, as he really is. Yet love will remain, and not only remain, but it will intensify to perfection. This is why St. Paul tells us that “the greatest of these is love” (1 Cor 13:13).

We must be careful to note, however, that the friendship God establishes with us in charity does not make us equals with God. Even as God draws us into his divine life, we remain creatures, while he remains the creator. Thus, as creatures who are made friends of God, we still owe various things to him in justice. We owe him gratitude, for example, as the source of our existence and well being. We also owe him worship and reverence for his divinity.

The first three commandments presuppose this truth. Given that every creature owes worship to God, the first commandment attempts to ensure that we worship the only true God: “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me” (Ex 20:2–3). The second commandment demands that our invocation of God’s holy name remains aimed at sacred purposes: “You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain” (Ex 20:7). The third commandment specifies the day on which the friends of God are to render him worship as members of the Church: “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy” (Ex 20:8).

For the Christian, therefore, friendship with God, obedience to his commands, and worship of his divinity are all connected. Christ even said as much at the Last Supper: “You are my friends if you do what I command you” (Jn 15:14). Accordingly, Jesus himself commanded several things at the Last Supper, including that we “love one another” (v. 17). Indeed, loving is what friends of God do. Another command he gives is to “do this in remembrance of me” (Lk 22:19), which the Lord gave in reference to celebrating the Eucharist. As the sacramental re-presentation of Christ’s sacrifice on Calvary, and the means by which the Risen Lord communicates his life to us, the celebration of the Eucharist constitutes the principal form of Christian worship. It is for this reason that, in obedience

…to the second commandment, the Church obliges her members to attend Holy Mass on Sundays and Holy Days. Other forms of worship, including personal prayers of praise, thanksgiving, and petition, draw their life from the Eucharist and lead back to it.

When we think about the Last Supper and the Eucharistic sacrifice, it may be helpful to recall your own family meals. If you want to be part of the family, and if you really love them, then you’ll want to be present with them at the most important moments, which very often happen around the dinner table. Family meals are a great way to express love for one another in praise and thanksgiving and a way to communicate with one another about your wants and needs. The celebration of the Eucharist (the Mass) is God’s way of bringing not just one family together but the entire human family to share love and friendship with him and with each other.

Of course, the Mass is much more than a meal. It is the way God has especially established for us to worship and adore him and to receive a share in his life as we receive his Body and Blood in Holy Communion. To worship God in this way is precisely what it means to be a Christian. By…baptism, we are appointed to this worship of God according to a Trinitarian pattern, and that is the liturgy of the Eucharist where, moved by the Holy Spirit, we offer the sacrifice of the Son to the Father.

In conclusion, to love God in charity is to live in friendship with him, to obey his commandments, and to worship him in the very way that he gives us to worship him.

Pieper, Josef. Faith, Hope, Love. Ignatius, 1997.