Perfect Charity

Recently the phrase “perfect charity” caught my ear during the Eucharistic prayer at mass. What would perfect charity look like?

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines charity as “generosity and helpfulness, especially toward the needy and suffering” and “benevolent goodwill toward or love of humanity.” Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son gives us an example of perfect charity in the father of two sons who is both generous with his material possessions and has a deep love for his children, despite their greed and hardness of heart.

Like many people, the prodigal son and his brother believe that wealth will make them happy. Their father already knows this belief is not true, as evidenced by his willingness to part with his wealth so promptly. The father also knows that his sons need to learn this lesson themselves, so he gives them the means to do so by dividing his property between them.

Clearly the wealth the father gives his sons does not make them happy; one squanders it and becomes destitute, and the other hoards it and fears it will be taken from him. As Barbara Reid, OP, says in Give Us This Day, for the prodigal son, the forgiveness and unfailing love of his father “resurrects in him the response of love and joy and gratitude, along with the sure knowledge that all is given freely and totally. This heritage cannot be earned and it is never depleted, even by our most egregious misuses.” The other son is still too blinded by righteousness, fear, and the belief that love must be earned to be able to respond to his father’s act of forgiveness with love, joy, and gratitude. In time, we hope that he will be brought back to fullness of life too.

Perfect charity, then, seems to entail being generous and loving toward everyone, even when they seemingly don’t “deserve” it, in the sure and certain hope that love will beget love. We can’t come to perfect charity through our own efforts. It is only by the mediation of the Spirit, as at Jesus’ baptism, that our eyes and ears can be open to God’s boundless love for us and the understanding that it won’t be diminished when we offer it to others. Let those who have eyes see and those who have ears hear!