Part V. On Order in the Cultivation of Charity

Preliminary Note. One can be loved before another in three ways: 1. intensively, when the will is borne toward one with a greater or more intense effort than toward another; 2. objectively, when we will a greater good to one than to another; 3. appreciatively, when you judge one to be worthier of love than another, so that you would rather lose the friendship of the other than of the former.

With these things noted beforehand, we shall speak first of the order of charity between God and creature, then of the order of charity between ourselves and our neighbor, and finally of the order of charity among our neighbors.