St. Paul said that we must possess charity (love) and that if we do not have it, we are nothing. We gain nothing knowing the doctrines of the faith if we do not live them out. We achieve nothing great if we speak with the tongues of angels and yet hold hatred in our heart. We can predict what is to happen, but if we are malicious, we show ourselves to be far from the truth, just like demons. We can even be killed by those who despise us, but if we do not know love, and love as God would have us know love, it is all for nothing: “If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing” (1 Cor. 13:3 RSV). This is why great Christian saints, great Christian martyrs, did not recognize those who were malicious, those who acted with contempt towards others, and who were killed by those they treated with contempt, as being a fellow martyr: “He cannot display himself a martyr who has not maintained fraternal charity.”[1] When nothing is found in them which indicates the charity or love of God, how can they be a martyr for the truth, when truth without love is not truth?
What is the value of our faith, and all we learn about the teachings of our faith, if we do not follow it, if we do not let it transform is so that we embrace the way of love, the way of charity? Of the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love (charity), love is the most important. Without it, our faith is not in and with the truth, but rather, some shadow of it. We cannot be proper Christians without it. “Charity among the trinity of virtues that make us godly, along with faith and hope, is the goal of all other virtues. Without charity there can be no true Christian life.”[2]
Pope Leo XIV, echoing many of the great saints, not only points out the primacy of love, but the kinds of implications that love should have on how we live. We must embrace the way of love, the way of God, acting in union with God’s love, working especially for those in greatest need, the poor and vulnerable of society:
Jesus’ teaching on the primacy of love for God is clearly complemented by his insistence that one cannot love God without extending one’s love to the poor. Love for our neighbor is tangible proof of the authenticity of our love for God, as the Apostle John attests: “No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us… God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them” (1 Jn 4:12,16). The two loves are distinct yet inseparable. Even in cases where there is no explicit reference to God, the Lord himself teaches that every act of love for one’s neighbor is in some way a reflection of divine charity: “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me” (Mt 25:40).[3]
The ordo amoris of the Christian faith, the ordo amoris which follows the teachings of Christ, embraces the preferential option for the poor and vulnerable; we are to be good neighbors, taking care of those in need, not finding excuses to ignore the plight of those suffering from extreme poverty or abuse by saying our concern should only be for our immediate friends and family. We also must not say the poor get what they deserve, that they are lazy or worthless and so deserve nothing from us. If we follow the proper Christian ordo amoris, giving of ourselves to others in proportion to their needs and what we can give, we shall be blessed by God:
Blessed, it says, is he who considers the poor and the needy. Now, in view of the ethical sense, many have given the following interpretations: the needy and the poor are different, and anyone who shares with these must give his charity proportionally, for then he acts intelligently.[4]
We must ignore those who would turn our faith merely into a system of dogmas, doctrines, liturgical aesthetics and ideologies without embracing the love which Christ told us to engage. Those who would suggest otherwise show themselves to be more concerned about knowing the right words to explain the teachings of the faith than they are doing what the faith tells them to do. Without works showing their faith, their faith is dead. Their faith is leading them nowhere. They have nothing for us to be praise, for there is nothing found in them which shows the transformation power of grace working within them.
We must not ignore the dictates of charity, the preferential option for the poor, by giving accepting excuses given to us by the rich and powerful to continue to accumulate more on the backs of the poor and needy. Sadly, it seems there have always been those who like to use the faith as a way to get rich and powerful, those who find excuses to ignore what Jesus taught. Thus, we find, time and time again, words like those of St. Cyprian, which indicate the harm being done within the church by those who ignore the proper ordo amoris:
For when the Lord in the Gospel was discoursing about almsgiving, and forewarned faithfully and for our salvation that we should make friends for ourselves of our earthly lucre by providence good works, the Scriptures added the following words: ‘Now the Pharisees, who were very fond of money, were listening to all these things, and they were sneering at him.” Certain persons like these we now see in the Church, whose closed ears and blinded hearts admit no light from the spiritual and saving warnings, of whom we should not marvel that they contemn the servant in his discourses, when we see that the Lord Himself is contemned by such.[5]
Just as it would be wrong to believe all, or even the majority, of the Pharisees were like the bad examples seen in Scripture, so we would be wrong in thinking all Christians are like the bad examples we see in our midst today; however, we would also be wrong to ignore the bad examples, to treat them as if they are not a part of the Christian faith. They are, and as such, they serve as a witness of the way the church has failed them, and in failing them, failed the world. Thus, those who die exploiting the poor, attacking the vulnerable, giving justification for abuse after abuse, even if they call themselves Christian (and some think they are killed because of it), do not die as a martyr and should not be honored as such. They did not serve as a witness to the way of Christ, but to the corruption of the world which they wanted to preserve and protect. Honoring them as martyrs for Christ would only corrupt the church more, as the faithful will have pseudo-martyrs representing a false faith, false martyrs presenting a false ordo amoris, leading many far from the truth of Christ.
[1] St. Cyprian of Carthage, “The Unity of the Church ” in St. Cyprian: Treatises. Trans. Roy J. Deferrari (New York: Fathers of the Church, Inc., 1958), 109.
[2] George Maloney, SJ, Prayer of the Heart (Notre Dame, IN: Ave Maria Press, 1981), 114.
[3] Pope Leo XIV, Dilexi te. Vatican translation. ¶26.
[4] Didymus the Blind, Lectures on the Psalms. Trans. Jonathan Douglas Hicks (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2024), 311.
[5] St. Cyprian of Carthage, “Works and Alms ” in St. Cyprian: Treatises. Trans. Roy J. Deferrari (New York: Fathers of the Church, Inc., 1958), 273.
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