g) LOVE IS THE LAW OF THE CHURCH

"The Church states and restates the great law of love"

The Church is our mother, a mother of such goodness that she appears as something utterly celestial.  Her words and her deeds, as well as her laws, attest to her goodness.  Just as the beloved disciple, toward the end of his life, could only repeat to the Christian assemblies these words: "Children, love one another," in the same way the Church states and restates to her children the great law of love.  Every time she teaches us the truth or spurs us on to virtue, every time she reminds us of God's commandments or enjoins his precepts on us, every time she makes us assist at the Eucharistic Sacrifice or promotes reception of the sacraments, every time she invites us to prayer or proposes the divine mysteries to our devotion, with every act of her ministry, she, in effect, repeats the same words: love God and love your neighbor.  Love God with all your mind, with all your heart, and with all your strength; love your neighbor as yourselves, with the love that comes from God.

But she shows her maternal goodness not only in her laws but also in the way she applies them.  Without in any way harming the basic unity of Christian practices, she takes into account times, places, and circumstances.  She varies the rites of her worship and the austerity of her norms according to the character, the customs, and the habits of the people she rules.  She forestalls unrest by tempering her discipline.⁴²

"The Church loves: this is her whole life"

This disconsolate mother often has reason to be disappointed with her children, who sadden and distress her.  Nevertheless, since she is a living institution, transcending time and space, she finds in herself the appropriate means to provide efficaciously for the salvation of her children even in the most unusual or most bizarre situations (...).

A marvelous bond connects all the members.  This bond is charity.  Woe to him who breaks this bond!  The Church loves.  This is her whole life.  Made for human beings, she permeates all their institutions, guides and blesses all their successes, grieves with them over their failures, and helps correct them.  She encourages their repentance, disposes them for amendment, and celebrates their return to God.

Unfortunately, our age is sick, as in fact are all the ages preceding it.  We see that an impartial history is reducing to their just value the exaggerated praise of some ages, as well as the excessive condemnation of others.  But tell me: what is a sick person's first remedy?  Is it not perhaps the compassion, the goodness, and the attentions lavished on him with tender loving care?  When a sick person sees these traits in the doctor, is it not true that he already feels on the road to recovery?  Is it not true that he feels so attracted to this doctor that, even in the most painful surgery, the sick person himself is liable to assist the doctor?  Hence, the great maxim of St. Gregory the Great: "Wounds that are to be treated must first be gently palpated."⁴³

"This spirit of wisdom and moderation, of meekness and charity"

In Christianity, this spirit of wisdom and moderation, of meekness and charity, was and always will be the characteristic of great souls.  Where this spirit reigns, there dissension will necessarily disappear.  There you will undoubtedly find order, harmony, and peace.  With joy and, at the same time, with sadness we recall the glorious days when the harmony among all believers and their full and perfect submission to the divinely instituted hierarchical order gave the Church an image of eternal youth, to use St. Irenaeus' lovely expression.  This image of the Church's eternal youth, together with the unsullied purity of her faith and morals, revealed her to the world as something divine.

The "one-heart-and-one-mind" attitude, which made our forefathers and mothers in the faith victorious over the darkness of idolatry and the fury of barbarians, will even today be the efficacious technique, perhaps the only one, for turning our present society back to the ideal

of a Christian society.⁴⁴

"Charity is the arbiter and mistress of our heart"

What is charity?  Charity, this denizen come down from heaven among us to bring hearts together, to alleviate adversity, to lift up the disheartened, and to cheer troubled families with serene joys is the most precious gift God could bestow on his people.  Charity makes the yoke so easy and the burden of law and life so light.  Charity strews the arduous path of this our exile with occasional flowers.  Charity is the balm for so many wounds, the relief of so many hearts.  Charity, together with the first and greatest commandment of love for God, sets us poor pilgrims on the path leading to our homeland, at whose doorsteps faith and hope will leave us and where charity alone will enter and reign.  Charity is the great law of Christianity.  Charity must radiate from our whole person and be the arbiter and mistress of our heart.  This charity calls for sacrifice from us, charity we cannot refuse our brothers and sisters lest we be guilty of unpardonable hardheartedness, lest, by our deeds, we give the lie to our title of Christian which we have every right to be proud of.⁴⁵