First Letter to the Corinthians 12,31.13,1-13.

« ... if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing»

Just as Faith, Charity is a gift.
Charity is the love of God in us. And this love is not eros (Èρως), it is not what gives physical pleasure, but it is filìa (φιλία), the feeling that pushes us to love as God loves.
In us, therefore, must first of all be the love and gratitude that we owe to God Who has chosen us as his adoptive children, to Whom we owe our divine affiliation.
In gratitude to Him, we must strive to manifest this same love by turning it towards our neighbor.
Loving your neighbor as yourself is first and foremost treating him as we would treat ourselves, within our possibilities, based on the respect that we must strive to show for everyone and everything down to the smallest detail.
For example, even when we park the car, do we pay attention to do it accurately and correctly, without causing confusion so as not to complicate the lives of others, even if it costs us more effort?
We will show our charity by striving to have that empathy towards others, putting ourselves in their shoes, always trying not to cause pain or difficulty to anyone, and helping as we can whoever God puts in our path, and whoever we recognize as our duty to help.
We will be charitable when we strive to do our duty to the best of our ability, perhaps helping others to do so, and striving to always do our best work for God's sake.

Jesus the poor the sick and the afflicted. Jesus helps anyone who asks

It may seem excessive for one of us, ordinary people, with wives or husbands and children, who in ordinary life often overloaded with problems, and sometimes we don't even know how to solve them.
In the best of cases we have to deal with problems of the family, children, home, having to pay bills and bills, having to comply with regulations and sometimes oppressive laws, as in the case of these years of the COVID19 pandemic, or even sometimes unfair as in some country in the world the excessive tax burden that impoverishes and deprives families of resources.
Many times we also feel pain, seeing so many people in the world who are in much more serious and harder difficulties than ours, perhaps afflicted by their illnesses or those of their relatives, and also of being aware and realizing that we cannot help them.
That is why we offer God with prayer the pains and the afflictions of the others and also our own.

HOW TO EARN THE GIFT
As with the Faith and Hope of eternal salvation, the only way to obtain the great gift of the virtue of Charity is to be together with Whom can give us that gift.
First of all comes the love and gratitude that we owe to God Who has chosen us as his adoptive children, love that must be directed not only to our neighbor, but first to God himself, acting as he commands.
What really matters in this world is striving to live according to the teachings of Christ in the place where God has placed us.
And for this it is necessary, in my opinion, to read a passage from the Gospel every day, pray and meditate on it.
But this is not enough: it is also necessary to read, study and document to understand how each one of us, in the position in which God did want to put him, and according to his own concrete responsibilities, can correctly contextualize the evangelical teaching in reality and make an effort to apply it in daily practice, without failing in the duties that we have first with our family and then with our society.

End

HISTORICAL NOTES

To document yourself on the time of Saint Paul click

• to open HISTORICAL  ENVIRONMENT IN THE LETTERS OF PAUL THE APOSTLE
  by Lino Bertuzzi - October,10 2014
  
• to open HISTORICAl  ENVIRONMENT IN THE APOSTLES ACTS
  by Lino Bertuzzi - Sept. 01, 2014
  
• to open DEFENDING PILATE
  by Lino Bertuzzi - Agosto. 23, 2014
• to open overview of few ancient history writings
  

Speaking about law and policy, I would like to draw attention to the fact that bad or flawed legislation, even if introduced for beneficial and ideally permissible and also just purposes, can still lead to the spread of poverty and even cause death of a lot of people.
In fact, political ethics, although based on the same principles, cannot always be applied with the same practice that could be praiseworthy for the individual or even for particular groups of people.
For example, those who, especially in the last 12 years, badly managing and worse legislating, have led our country, Italy, to today's bad situations, aren't endowed with the virtue of charity.I think so..

Certainly those people who have knowingly abused their power are not also endowed with the virtue of charity, causing apparently good ends to waste money and human lives, acting on the basis of inappropriate ideologies at the historical moment or because a personal interest.

  No fear! the Mercy of Jesus
  is INFINITE