Article — Marc, Institutiones Morales
Article II: On Acts of Charity Toward Neighbor
The precept of charity, as was said above (n. 470), obliges to acts both internal and external.
- PRINCIPLES. I. The internal act is to be elicited from a supernatural motive, more often in life. For if it were not made on account of love of God, or so that we may obey the precept of Christ, there would be no place for the precept: A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another (John 13:34). - But it is to be elicited, just as the act of charity toward God, more often in life, because both are subject to the same rules. Cf. n. 472.
But he already satisfies the precept who pours forth prayers for all, for example by reciting the Lord's prayer. Likewise, these acts of charity are well exercised on the occasion of avoiding hatred or of giving alms. And since occasions of this kind occur frequently, hence it is morally impossible that the faithful living Christianly should not abundantly satisfy this precept.
II. The obligation of eliciting external acts of charity is to be determined from various circumstances. But it is determined according to the necessity of neighbor, and our faculty of helping him. It is established from the things said at n. 483 seqq.
External acts by which another's necessity is relieved, whether from precept or from counsel, are called WORKS OF MERCY.1
The corporal works of mercy are numbered as seven, namely: to visit the sick, to give drink to the thirsty, to feed the hungry, to redeem captives, to clothe
the naked, to gather in guests, and to bury the dead. - The spiritual works are likewise numbered as seven, namely: to give counsel to the doubtful, to correct the sinner, to teach the ignorant, to console the afflicted, to forgive injuries to the offender, to bear the troublesome and fastidious, to pray for all. Hence that twofold little verse:
I visit, give drink, feed, redeem, cover, gather, bury.
Counsel, reprove, teach, console, forgive, bear, pray.
Here we shall treat of two principal works of mercy: 1. of almsgiving strictly so called; 2. of the spiritual alms which is fraternal correction.
(1) St. Thom., 2.2, q. 30-32; cf. St. Alph., Inst. cat., P. I, c. 1, n. 43, and Vera Sposa, c. 12, 23. "Christian religion chiefly taught us the virtue of mercy. For although the law of nature inclines man from compassion to relieving another's misery, nevertheless the notion of mercy among the Gentiles was so obscured and its exercise so neglected that Plato wished to relegate the poor from the republic, and Seneca thought mercy a vice of the soul." Thus Noldin, II, n. 86. Cf. Ami du Clerge, 1897, p. 562, 978; Kirchenlexicon, v. Armenpflege.