If charity is the greatest virtue, and true virtue is rightly ordered love, then perhaps we should make a list of the people in our lives and decide where they rank so we can love them accordingly. Family first, then friends, then acquaintances, then enemies last—sound reasonable?
Well, when it comes to ordering our loves, there are only two categories—there’s that law of the excluded middle again, tertium non datur. Love God first, and then love our neighbor.
“But,” we may be tempted to ask, like the lawyer in the gospel of Luke, “then who is my neighbor?”
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus teaches: 43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor[a] and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you….”
It turns out that with charity, there is no ranking of people. G.K. Chesterton sums it up nicely, “The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because generally they are the same people.”
Have a wonderful day.
