AMBITION FOR HIGHER GIFT OF CHARITY

WEDNESDAY, TWENTY FOURTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

1 Cor 12:31-13:13; Ps 33:2-5,12,22; Lk 7:31-35

The Higher and Perfect Gift of Charity

Faith is a supernatural gift of God that offers us a capacity to contain God and become a channel of his work among his people. Notice that this definition of faith is about what God will do through us, besides the biblical definition of faith as the substance of the realities we do not see and assurance of blessings we hope for. Defined regarding us, we related faith to the charismatic gifts of the Holy Spirit Paul mentioned yesterday. Possessing the gift of faith as a foundation, the Holy Spirit works through us with the various gifts given to each member to carry out our Lord’s mission of saving souls. Without faith, we cannot manifest these gifts, and we will not witness the saving presence of the Lord in the community. Today, Paul highlights the dangerous pitfall and warns us against it. The pitfall abides even with the presence of faith and abundance of manifestations of the charismatic gifts of the Holy Spirit. The danger is that we can lose sight of the presence of God even while exercising these charismatic gifts he has given us. Paul explains this danger as coming from God’s unfathomable goodness, which makes him unwilling to revoke his call or his gifts once he has given them. This permanence of the gifts is a source of danger and a subtle snare of the evil one to our weak human nature that is egocentric.

To prevent us from falling into this potential pitfall and ever-present evil closely connected to our fallible nature, Paul urges us to focus on the higher gifts that assure the life of God in us and our salvation. “Be ambitious for the higher gifts. And I am going to show you a way that is better than any of them. If I have all the eloquence of men or of angels, but speak without love, I am simply a gong booming or cymbal clashing. If I have the gift of prophecy, understanding all the mysteries there are, and knowing everything, and if I have faith in all its fullness, to move mountains, but without love, then I am nothing at all.” The life and usefulness of these charismatic gifts is the love of God. Charity is the custodian of all gifts and directs them to the glory of God alone and the salvation of souls. Love is sufficient by itself, for it is God’s presence. Charity is the same as the Holy Spirit, the love of the Father and the Son. Only love can coordinate these gifts of the Holy Spirit for the mystical body of Jesus Christ. Love is incorruptible; hence, it defines the heavenly life. While faith and hope are among the higher gifts, they will end at the gate of heaven; only charity admits and follows us into the heavenly banquet. Hence, any Christian ignorant of his charismatic gift, as St. Theresa of the Child Jesus was, need not worry but practice love as described by Paul. We make more contributions to the building of the Church when we love, as described by Paul, than all the gifts put together.

Subsequently, Paul refers to our lives as childish when they are characterised by constant gravitation toward visible charismatic gifts of the Holy Spirit. He urges us not to remain fixated in this infantile stage of our Christian journey. The manifestations of charismatic gifts are mainly useful at the early stage of our journey into the mystery of Christ. As we grow in the mystery, the Spirit nudges us on to forget self, external spirituality, sensible devotions, spiritual consolations, etc., and embrace Jesus Christ unconditionally. “When I was a child, I used to talk like a child, and think like a child, and argue like a child, but now I am a man, all childish ways are put behind me.” Our Lord referred to this childish manner in which we approach spiritual things when he condemned the people’s reluctance to follow the call to repentance and abandonment of self. We are like children who would neither dance to the sweet music of the pipes nor cry to the sad dirges. The Lord softly reprimands us for making our spirituality all about self and self-consolation; true spirituality is about God alone. We must forget ourselves and focus on loving God with all our minds, hearts, and strength. The spiritual perfection of the people the Lord has chosen as his own consists in this.

Let us pray: Grant us, Lord, the grace to receive and cherish your love, which is above every other spiritual gift, for it is your abiding presence in our souls, leading us to the perfection of our spiritual journey into the mystery of Jesus Christ your Son.