Charity to the
poor, compassion for the unfortunate are indeed excellent virtues,
because they cancel numerous sins, and because they seem to form the
principal matter of that terrible judgment which will decide our weal
or woe for eternity; yet you might distribute all your wealth among
the poor, and still merit no reward from God.
We are recommended by the Holy Scriptures and by the masters of the
spiritual life to practice mortification, the perfection of which is
found in martyrdom; and nevertheless, though you should even lacerate
your body till it became one bleeding wound, and deliver it into the
hands of the executioner to be burned, you might gain nothing thereby.
None of all those things constitutes the essence of piety. One thing
alone can claim this privilege and that is CHARITY, not that charity
which consists merely in _feeling_ and _speaking_, but a
_charity that is active_, and which penetrates the entire life
by its divine, influence; that charity which is patient and
beneficent, not envious, dealing not perversely, not puffed up. True
charity is not ambitious seeks not its own, is not provoked to anger,
thinks no evil, does not rejoice in iniquity but for the good it
beholds everywhere, it bears all things, believes all things, hopes
all things and endures all things; such is the soul of true piety
according to the Apostle St.
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