“Only in truth does charity shine forth, only in truth can charity be authentically lived. Truth is the light that gives meaning and value to charity. That light is both the light of reason and the light of faith, through which the intellect attains to the natural and supernatural truth of charity: it grasps its meaning as gift, acceptance, and communion. Without truth, charity degenerates into sentimentality. Love becomes an empty shell, to be filled in an arbitrary way. In a culture without truth, this is the fatal risk facing love. It falls prey to contingent subjective emotions and opinions, the word “love” is abused and distorted, to the point where it comes to mean the opposite. Truth frees charity from the constraints of an emotionalism that deprives it of relational and social content, and of a fideism that deprives it of human and universal breathing-space.”

— Pope Benedict XVI

2009, Cartias in Vertitate (29 June 2009)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Only in truth does charity shine forth, only in truth can charity be authentically lived. Truth is the light that gives…" by Pope Benedict XVI?

Pope Benedict XVI 117

265th Pope of the Catholic Church 1927

Related quotes

“I had three manners of understanding of this light, Charity. The first is Charity unmade; the second is Charity made; the third is Charity given. Charity unmade is God; Charity made is our soul in God; Charity given is virtue. And that is a precious gift of working in which we love God, for Himself; and ourselves, in God; and that which God loveth, for God.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

The Sixteenth Revelation, Chapter 84

“Charity without faith is meaningless, and faith without charity remains a dead letter.”

Pope Benedict XVI (1927) 265th Pope of the Catholic Church

Quoted in Elise Harris, " Priest Swaps Clerical Hats with 'Sharp, Healthy' Benedict XVI http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/priest-swaps-clerical-hats-with-sharp-healthy-benedict-xvi", National Catholic Register (11 February 2013)
2013

“The light is Charity, and the measuring of this light is done to us profitably by the wisdom of God.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

The Sixteenth Revelation, Chapter 84
Context: The light is Charity, and the measuring of this light is done to us profitably by the wisdom of God. For neither is the light so large that we may see our blissful Day, nor is it shut from us; but it is such a light in which we may live meedfully, with travail deserving the endless worship of God.