Letters From a Young Catholic

My reflections as a Catholic young adult passionate about the Faith, seeking to grow in knowledge and understanding of God and discerning the will of the Lord in my life.

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Whether charity is friendship?

I've been taking Latin both semesters this past year and it's been amazing. It was a really challenging course and required a lot of work and effort but it was so worth it. I'm excited that I can now read quotes from the Latin vulgate in the writings of the saints without having to look them, make sense of St. Thomas Aquinas in Latin and even read through some Church documents in Latin. I know I'll sound like a geek but . . . Latin is fun! :-)

Anyways, for one of our final assignments we got to choose any (well, within reason) Latin text we wanted to translate.

I chose St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, II-II, Q.23, a. 1,
Whether charity is friendship?

My favourite line of the selection:

"Et hoc modo caritas, quae maxime est amicitia honesti, se extendit at peccatores, quos ex caritate diligimus propter Deum."

In this way, charity, which is above all the friendship of honor, extends itself to sinners, who, out of charity, we love on account of God.