Strengthening charity in daily life

Paragraph 1394 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which I quoted in my previous post, includes an admission of something that may be too much a part of life to catch the attention: "our charity...tends to be weakened in daily life."

Decide for yourself whether this is true in your own case, but if it is, it should be one of the central facts -- up there with gravity and taxes -- around which you build your life. Why? Because charity is what we have been created to do, and we all spend a great deal of time in daily life. We need to take action to overcome any tendency for the latter to weaken the former.

Para. 1394 proposes the reception of Holy Communion as a (really the pre-eminent) way to overcome that tendency. (Again, that would be the fruitful reception of Holy Communion, which presupposes the proper disposition of the recipient, but then having the intention of strengthening your charity by receiving Holy Communion is the lion's share of a proper disposition.)

Prayer is, of course, another way to resist the weakening of charity. If charity is weakened in daily life, then prayer should occur in daily life. In the same circumstances, in the very moments in which charity would otherwise be weakened, we should be praying. Again, decide for yourself which moments those are.

Link | 0 comments | Tweet

---