Last week, we ended our discussion about the Virtue of Charity by thinking about the best way to attain it; as with all the virtues, we best attain charity is by grace through the sacraments, specifically the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass because it is the sacrament of charity. This week we will talk about the unity of the virtues and how they are all part of the Christian life and find their common source in God.

St Paul says, ?If I do not have charity?I am nothing.? So, we know that there is a hierarchy of virtue and that charity is at the top, this is because God himself is love, he is charity. What is interesting about charity, though, is that it doesn?t separate itself and stand alone, but it gathers up the other virtues into itself. The Catechism says that charity, ?binds everything together in perfect harmony.? It also explains that charity is the form of all the virtues; meaning that every good act we do should be out of love.

Now, that might seem obvious, but in practice it is not, and it will be helpful for us to sort it all out. Let?s say you are amazing at 6 of the 7 virtues: you are prudent, courageous, just, and temperate, you have tons of faith and hope?but you don?t have charity. This would mean that you do good only out of duty or because you are afraid of going to hell. But remember, without love I am nothing. This is because, in spite of how incredibly good a person is, without love he would not really know God, wouldn?t have a right relationship with him. St. Basil says, ?If we turn away from evil out of fear of punishment, we are in the position of slaves. If we pursue the enticement of wages (by this he means trying to earn heaven because you want it as a reward)?we resemble mercenaries. Finally if we obey for the sake of the good itself and out of love for him who commands?we are in the position of children.? This last one is where we want to be; God?s children, sons and daughters of God, brothers and sisters to Jesus Christ himself.

All of the virtues are gathered up in the love of God for us and the love we return to him. This is the motivation for everything else we do; the Sunday obligation to come to mass, going to confession, abstaining from meat on Fridays, giving time and money to the work of the Church, raising our children in the faith?I could literally give a lifetime of examples, because the virtue of charity is the work of a life. It is who we are called to become; people who love.

Now, this doesn?t mean that we ignore the other virtues and simply try to love, because without the other virtues we don?t know what love even means, we wouldn?t know how. We also don?t want to think that all of the virtues are some form of the exact same virtue; the virtues are unified by love but they are distinct. The catechism used that word, ?Harmony?. When our choir here sings, they do so with harmonies, distinct vocal patterns that interweave to form a sound even more beautiful than a single melody. This is how the virtues are. We need them all and we need the diversity of them and we end up with a beautiful song.

Sounds really nice, right? It is! It is essentially a call to sainthood. God wants you to be filled up with virtues to the point that you are able to imitate Our Lord, to be beautiful and good in the same way that he is. It is also a huge challenge. God is not going to settle for us being mediocre. It is not okay for us to pick and choose the virtues that we prefer, as if we can practice a few of them that we happen to be good at and ignore the others. We don?t get off so easy. God wants you to love him in the same way that he loves you: with everything you have and all that you are.

He gives himself to us at the Cross, made present for us in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. He gives us everything. The question for us to ponder as we prepare to receive him this morning is: will we give all of our love to him in return?