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If anyone says, 'I love God,' and hates his brother, he is a liar; For whoever does not love his brother, whom he sees, can not love God, who does not go. And we have received from him this commandment: who loves God, love also
his brother.
The theological virtue of charity, of which we speak in the previous catechesis, it is expressed in two directions: towards God and towards our neighbor. In both aspects it is fruit of the dynamism of the life of the Trinity within us. Indeed, charity has its source in the Father, it is fully revealed in the Easter of the Son, Crucified and Risen, and is infused into us by the Spirit Holy. In it God makes us sharers in his own Love.
Whoever truly loves with the love of God will also love the brother as He he loves him Here lies the great novelty of Christianity: you can not love God who does not he loves his brothers, creating with them an intimate and persevering communion of love.
The teaching of Sacred Scripture in this regard is unequivocal. the love to the like is already recommended to the Israelites: "You shall not avenge or keep resentment against the children of your people. You shall love your neighbor as yourself ".
Although this command at first seems restricted only to the Israelites, progressively understood in an increasingly broad, including foreigners who live in their midst, as a souvenir that Israel was also a stranger in the land of Egypt.
In the New Testament this love is ordered in a clear sense universal: it supposes a concept of neighbor that has no borders and it extends even to enemies (cf Mt 5, 43-47). It is important to note that love the neighbor is considered imitation and prolongation of the merciful goodness of the Celestial Father, who provides for the needs of all and does not distinguish people. In any case, it remains linked to the love of God, because the two commandments of love constitute the synthesis and the culmination of the Law and of the Prophets. Only one who practices both commandments is near the kingdom of God, as Jesus says by answering the scribe who had made the question.
Following this itinerary, which links love to neighbor with love of God, and both with the life of God in us, it is easy to understand why the New Testament presents love as the fruit of the Spirit, moreover, as the first among the many gifts enumerated by St. Paul in the letter to the Galatians: "the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, affability, kindness, fidelity, meekness, self-control »
The theological tradition has distinguished the theological virtues, the gifts and the fruits of the Holy Spirit, although he has correlated them (see Catechism of the Catholic Church, nn. 1830-1832). While the virtues are permanent qualities conferred on the creature with a view to the supernatural works to be performed and the gifts perfect both the theological and moral virtues, the fruits of the Spirit are virtuous acts that the person performs easily, in a habitual and with pleasure (see Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae.
These distinctions are not opposed to what St. Paul affirms when he speaks in the singular of the fruit of the Spirit. In effect, the Apostle wants to indicate that the fruit par excellence it is divine charity, the soul of every virtuous act. In the same way as the light of sun is expressed in a varied range of colors, so charity manifests itself in
multiple fruits of the Spirit.
Love of neighbor has a Christological connotation, given that it must conform to the gift that Christ has made of his life: "In this we have known what is love: that he gave his life for us. We must also give our lives for the brothers "(1 Jn 3:16). That commandment, having as a measure the love of Christ, can be called "new" and allows to recognize the true disciples: «Os I give a new commandment: that you love one another. As I have loved you, so also love one another. In this you will all know that you are disciples Mine: if you have love for one another "(Jn 13, 34-35). The christological meaning Love of neighbor will shine at the second coming of Christ. Precisely then it will be verified that the measure to judge the adhesion to Christ is precisely the daily and visible exercise of charity towards the most in need:
"I was hungry and you gave me food" . Only those who care about their neighbors and their needs show concretely his love to Jesus If it closes or remains indifferent to the "other", the Spirit is closed Holy, he forgets Christ and denies the universal love of the Father.