The Mystical Bonds of Charity.

Sunday's second reading (1 Corinthians 12:31 - 13:13) brings home the centrality of love (charity) to all we do in life.  ( . . . if I have all faith so as to move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. . . ."

Since love's ultimate source is God, all "good action" must (whether realized or not by the actor) be connected and directed by God's love.  Since charity/ love is self-less, it is God's grace that enables us to be charitable, to be loving.  This is very basic to Catholic belief.

St. Thomas said, "it is by charity that all the other virtues are directed to [humanity's] final end.  Accordingly, [charity] informs the acts of virtures . . . and is the form of the virtues [forma virtutum] . . ." [S.Th. II-II, 23, 8, c] 

In other words, without actual participation in the very life of the Living God there exists no such thing as moral virtue. Virtues are nothing but embodiments of charity in a particular domain of life.

Quoted from God Encountered, Vol. 2/4 at p. 58, 60, by Frans Jozef van Beeck.

The point of all this is that the love that inhabits and inspires all good acts leads us to our final end, which is union with the God of love. According to van Beeck (who is in turn quoting Jan van Ruusbroec), at the lowest level, the "inner touch of God's love" produces an outwardly perfect moral life "after the manner of Christ and his saints."  This is not a minimal Christian life style at all, but a fulfillment of our natural capacities.  Van Beeck adds:

"But there is more.  At the interior, spiritual ('charismatic') level, charity stirs up theological virtue proper: faith, hope, and love first of all, but then also, 'under the influence of divine grace and other gifts, and of one's own zest for every virtue,' the capability to actively 'follow the example of Christ and of holy Christendom.'

'Finally, at the highest ('mystical') level (which most conforms to every human person's essential attunement to God), the active life finds itself even further transformed.  This is where maturely virtuous people recognize that they must lose even their interest in being good.'

They will act out of delight; in that sense, they will envision in every act of virtue only the honor and praise of God; even further, they will aspire to abandoning themselves to God beyond deliberation, beyond their own selves, indeed beyond everything.  Thus, precisely be living equivalently de-centered lives, they will find their true selves -- immemorial and authentic, and made new and ecstatic.'

And so, a love-centered, love-directed life (in which pure charity is the motivation and end of action) leads out of morality proper to our final end of union with the God who loves.  That union is a mystical in that our desire for love, and our compassion, unites with the God who is love, and who loves us without limit or end.   Ibid., p. 59.