What is the difference between these two loves?
This: one is a love of complacency in God in so far as He is Himself happy; the other a love of complacency in God in so far as He is our own happiness.
Are these two loves inseparable in the virtue of charity?
Yes, they are absolutely inseparable.
Why are they inseparable?
Because each rules the other, and they are reciprocally cause and effect.
How can it be shown that they rule each other, and are reciprocally cause and effect?
By this: if God were not our good we would have no reason at all for loving Him; and if there were not in Him, as in its fount, the good that He is for us, we would not love Him by the love with which we love Him (XXV. 4).
Are both these loves pure and perfect?
Yes, in very truth.
Is each one of them a love belonging to the virtue of charity?
Yes.
Is there not, however, some order between these two loves; and which of the two holds the first place?
Yes, there is here a certain order; and that love holds the first place which is complacency in God, because of the infinite good which He is to Himself.
Why does this love hold the first place?
Because the good that God is to Himself outbalances the good that God is to us: not that this good is really different, for it is always God Himself in so far as He is in Himself; but because this good is in God in an infinite manner and as it were in its source; whereas it is in us in a finite manner and by participation.
Does the love of charity embrace others besides God and us?
Yes, the love of charity reaches to all those who already possess the happiness of God or who hope to possess it one day (XXV. 6-10).
Who are those who already possess the happiness of God?
The angels and the elect in heaven.
Who are those who hope to possess it one day?
All the souls of the just in purgatory and all living on earth.
Must one then love all men on earth with the love of charity?
Yes.
Next - The Catechism of the Summa - SECOND SECTION - A DETAILED SURVEY OF MAN'S RETURN TO GOD - VIII. OF CHARITY AND ITS NATURE; OF ITS PRINCIPAL ACT AND THE FORMULA OF THIS ACT (C)
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