The Virtue of Charity - The Conception - Bk 2 - Ch8

What a great chapter! The Venerable Sister Mary of Jesus describes the virtue of charity (queen of the virtues) in the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Blessed Virgin gives us a list to consider saying, "I desire that you exert your utmost powers to copy within your soul, with the greatest perfection, all that you have learned of my charity."

"In order that you may be sure that you love Him perfectly and truly, search within yourself for the following signs and effects of that love; whether your thought and meditation dwell continually on God, whether his commands and counsel find in you no repugnance or remissness, whether you fear to offend Him, whether you seek immediately to appease Him after having offended Him, whether you grieve to see Him offended and rejoice to see Him served by all creatures, whether you desire and are delighted to speak continually of his love; see whether you delight in the memory of his presence, whether you grieve at your forgetfulness of Him and at his absence from you, whether you love what He loves, and abhor what He abhors, whether you seek to draw all men towards his friendship and grace, whether you pray with confidence; see whether you receive with gratitude his benefits, whether you do not waste them but rather turn them to good account for his honor and glory, whether you strive to extinguish in yourself all the movements of the passions, which retard you or hinder you in your loving aspirations and in your works of virtue."