Celebrating 900 Years!

The Virtue of Charity
Christian charity is a two-fold endeavor rooted in the heart of the believer and expressed outwardly through words and deeds. In its purest sense, charity is the seat of compassion and kindness through which all else in our faithful life flows.

Grounded in the desire to love God above all things with the exceeding fullness of our heart, charity also challenges us to extend that same love to our neighbors. Such love strives to seek and recognize the value and dignity of others, disregarding words, intentions, and actions in favor of anticipating the capacity of all people to find the motive for their choices in goodness and righteousness. It is easy to accommodate the behaviors and efforts of individuals when they align with our own desires, or when we hold common ground and shared values. It is another matter to extend the courtesy of favor to others when they may approach life differently, and to indulge a generosity of the heart at such times.

Likewise, that same lens of divine love considers misfortune to be blameless, inviting us to draw on the transforming love of Christ to mitigate the devastation that a cruel and selfish world can inflict on the vulnerable and the suffering. It is to these hurts, especially, that our call as knights and dames is rendered most distinctly. In this context we embody and reflect the nature of God to love deeply and tenderly, drawing a fractured world toward the unifying and healing wholeness that is God’s desire for us. As Templars we are called to radiate and glorify that love, incarnating the compassion of Christ. The following prayer invites us to live into this virtue fully as we beseech God: “Take our minds and think through them, take our mouths and speak through them, take our hands and work through them, take our hearts and set them on fire with your love.”