1. St. Thomas described pure human love as the love of concupiscence, i.e when one loves another person for the pleasure or benefit he can get from the other. This is the worldly kind of love one hears in love songs and see in movies. It is the only kind of love the human race seems to know.
This worldly kind of love is actually hate of God in which case a man really hates everybody and the whole world, St. Augustine wrote. Christ, Himself, prophesied that a day will come when there will be a decay of Faith and the waxing cold of Charity, that there will be no true love in the world due to the decay of Faith.
St. Thomas described love, i.e Charity as friendship. It is a relationship between two person where each benefit the other physically and spiritually. The relationship is based on both the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. Both are rendering to the other acts of corporal and spiritual works of mercy, the latter being the more important givings.
True Christian love is called Charity; this is a supernatural and theological virtue that is infused in the soul by God. Charity is not man made. It is God who infused it with man’s cooperation.
2. Where is ‘love?’
The love of concupiscence, or commonly called lust, is everywhere. It has even filled the Church in the form of pedophilia, sodomy and other sexual perversions. And even the Vatican office is filled with them, which shows Christ’s prophecy fulfilled that, today, there is no Faith and no Charity in the institutional Church. In fact, Pope Francis, at the beginning of his papacy gave that well know papal speech declaring that the Catholic Church no longer is based on the three theological virtues, specially Charity.
Pope Benedict XVI, himself, wrote ‘Deus Caritas Est’ where he mentioned that the institutional Church seems to be ignorant of true Charity. He gave St. Vincent the Paul and mother Teresa of Calcutta as example of souls who knew what was Charity, in the last paragraph of his encyclical.
And, indeed, if anyone takes down any treatise on Faith, Hope and Charity, it is noticeable that the institutional Church have none of them. Of course, the true Church has them but nobody knows where the true Church is today.
3. Why it is impossible for souls to have Charity.
The theological virtue of Charity is an infused gift from God. Nobody can acquire this on his own. God gives this to anyone who has done three things; first, he has known all his disobediences to the commands of Christ. Secondly, he has perfectly repented for his sins through a life of prayer, fasting and good works, according to St. Augustine. Thirdly, he has made a perfect Act of Faith.
These three steps are none existent today. Nobody knows what are their sins. Sins are disobediences to the commands of Jesus Christ and nobody knows what are the commands of Christ. Not even priests and bishops. Not even Pope Francis. There are 82 commandments taught through the Liturgy and 50 commands from Ash Wednesday to Pentecost.
Christ’s Apostolic Commission commanded the apostles ‘to teach all My commands and how to obey them.’ And nobody has done it. Check You Tube for published homilies. No one did it right. How do you expect the laymen to know them. No way. None of them know the commands of Christ. So nobody knows what are their sins. How do you expect anyone to repent for their sins when they do not even know their sins.
Unable to repent for their sins, all souls cannot receive from God the infused virtue of Faith. Without perfect Faith, Charity is impossible. That is why the world is filled with hate crimes because there is no true love, the source of which is God the Holy Spirit.
4. The two breathings of Christ.
In the training of the apostles, Christ taught them what were sins, then He taught them how to repent, not according to the repentance of John the Baptist, but the repentance of the New Testament through the acquisition of the virtue of Penance, develop in them perfect Faith and then breath on them twice; the first time is before Easter, the second time is during Pentecost.
On Easter, Christ gave His followers the virtue of Charity that enabled them to love one’s neighbour. On Pentecost, Christ gave them the power to love God.
To love one’s neighbour, like husband and wife, parents and children, etc, comes from the Holy Spirit, not from man. Christ said; ‘receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them.’ Any soul who have reached this state of spirituality where he possess perfect Faith and love of neighbour can have all their past sins forgiven and merit heaven. All priests and bishops are supposed to reach this stage of spirituality other wise, as Christ mentioned, they cannot forgive sins because the forgiveness of sins was given, only, to those who receive this breath of Christ.
To love one’s neighbour with Charity is a power than comes from the Holy Spirit. It is not given to all. It is not humanly attainable. It is given only to those with perfect Faith. With the present age that is described by Christ and Pope Benedict XVI as having a crisis of Faith, there is no Charity, there is no love. Today’s world have only hatred.
The love of neighbour, as an act of the Holy Spirit, is the goal of all Christian soul. The love of God given by the HOLY SPIRIT on Pentecost is given to few. Only to those with important roles in developing, maintaining and defending the true Catholic Church. Today, no one seems to have this. Definitely none of the Charismatics who really do not have the Holy Spirit because they have not gone through the steps one, two and three mentioned in the Liturgy.
It is ideal that all true followers of Christ should receive the two breathings of Christ that will empower them to love neighbour and love God. But, today, neither of these two loves are present in the institutional Church. They are present in the true Church, which, however, no one knows where they are because no one knows how Faith, Hope and Charity look like. Though thoroughly spiritual concept these three theological virtues have visible signs which are impossible to detect except for those who have some degree of true Faith.
5. The pandemic.
The on going pandemic, now in its second year, is God calling the human race to know their sins, repent and make an act of perfect Faith; otherwise, if they get the virus and die, they could go straight to hell. But nobody is getting the message right; not even the bishops and not even the Pope. Those who are supposed to teach the human race how to prepare do not know how to prepare.
Well, this has been the punishment God have given mankind whenever man refuses to repent. The Liturgy of the Mass up to today, the Feast of Pentecost where the Liturgy, does not speak of Pentecost but of Easter, repeats the sign by which we can know that we have perfect Faith and with the great possibility of having love of neighbour in that Christ have given us the first breathing, the Holy Spirit, that empowers us to love our neighbour, not with a human love, but with a love by which Christ have loved us……that we love our neighbour with a Divine Love that enable us to teach our neighbour, our husband, wife, children…..how to repent that leads to perfect Faith.