‘Charity’ now means simply what used to be called ‘alms’–that is, giving to the poor. Originally it had a much wider meaning. (You can see how it got the modern sense. If a man has ‘charity’, giving to the poor is one of the most obvious things he does, and so people came to talk as if that were the whole of charity. In the same way, ‘rhyme’ is the most obvious thing about poetry, and so people come to mean by ‘poetry’ simply rhyme and nothing more.) Charity means ‘Love, in the Christian sense’. But love, in the Christian sense, does not mean an emotion. It is a state not of the feelings but of the will; that state of the will which we have naturally about ourselves, and must learn to have about other people.
C.S. Lewis in Studies in Words (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960).
Lewis always has good things to say.
When I researched to see what he thought of alms, he again impressed, or rather, blessed me, and I pray his thoughts touch you. Charity is not merely giving to the poor, it is expressing love, and it is something we have to learn.
I pray this Lent has been a training ground for each of us to grow in charity, or rather, love.