We Shall Be Judged on Love

Fraternal Charity Proves Our Progress

Photo by Nina Strehl on Unsplash

Evidence of True Christianity

How can we tell if we are progressing in the spiritual life? We have decided to follow Christ and try to keep His commandments, attend the Divine Liturgy and other church services, receive holy communion, go to confession, and spend time every day in prayer and spiritual reading. All of this is very good.

But do these religious activities make any difference in our behavior? Are we any better than an agnostic, unbeliever, or secular humanist? Let’s put ourselves to the test.

“Examine yourselves, to see whether you are holding to your faith. Test yourselves. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you? — unless indeed you fail to meet the test!” (2 Cor. 13:5–6).

The best evidence of spiritual growth is the virtue of supernatural fraternal charity. Carmelite author Father Gabriel of Saint Mary Magdalene (1893–1953) writes, “

Fraternal charity is the mark of God’s elect. If we do not have this distinctive mark, Jesus does not recognize us as His disciples; our heavenly Father does not love us as His children, nor will He take us into His Kingdom… Fraternal charity of this kind is the surest guarantee of a spiritual life that is advancing toward sanctity” (Divine Intimacy, 203–204).

Nice People Don’t Count

The proof that we are making progress, growing in love for God, and developing a genuine Christian character is love of neighbor. And this doesn’t mean just loving people who are nice to us. Supernatural fraternal charity means loving, bearing with, forgiving, and helping difficult, irritating, frustrating, and upsetting people. It means loving people we do not like, those we have an aversion to, and those who rub us the wrong way.

Jesus tells us:

“If you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you salute only your brethren, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt. 5:46–48).

Father Gabriel says,

“It is easy to deceive ourselves, thinking we have great charity because we love those who love us, because we are very thoughtful and full of attentions toward those who think as we do, or who are close to us, while, in reality, it is a question of purely natural love into which the love of God hardly enters” (Divine Intimacy, 775).

Practicing fraternal charity is extremely difficult, and it is only to the extent that we practice this supernatural fraternal charity that we can be sure we are heading for heaven. Saint Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 13:1–3:

“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.”

Miracles, Signs, and Wonders Don’t Prove Sanctity

Miracles, signs, wonders, visions, dreams, revelations, prophecy, bilocation, levitation, stigmata, exorcisms, advanced degrees, academic achievements, long hours spent in prayer, fasting, penances, giving substantial donations, and even dying for the Faith are worthless if they lack supernatural fraternal charity.

Saint Paul describes what fraternal charity looks like in 1 Corinthians 13:4–8:

“Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

In Galatians 5:22, Saint Paul says that the “fruit (proof, evidence) of the Spirit is love….”

Jesus says,

“A new commandment give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (Jn. 13:34–35).

and

“Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me” (Mt. 25:40).

Your Goal: Fraternal Charity

Saint Teresa of Avila says,

“Ah, if we understood well how important is this virtue of the love of our neighbor, we should give ourselves entirely to the pursuit of it.”

Fraternal charity is the real proof of spiritual progress, the greatest evidence that we truly love God above all else. From now on, let us make fraternal charity our greatest priority.

“In the evening of life, we shall be judged on love.” — Saint John of the Cross (Spiritual Maxims, 1:57)