Faith Without Love is Dead
Gospel Reflection for May 25, 2025, the Sixth Sunday of Easter - John 14:23-29
Jesus answered, and said to him: If any one love me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and will make our abode with him.
He that loveth me not, keepeth not my words. And the word which you have heard, is not mine; but the Father's who sent me.
These things have I spoken to you, abiding with you.
But the Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring all things to your mind, whatsoever I shall have said to you.
Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, do I give unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be afraid.
You have heard that I said to you: I go away, and I come unto you. If you loved me, you would indeed be glad, because I go to the Father: for the Father is greater than I.
And now I have told you before it comes to pass: that when it shall come to pass, you may believe. (John 14:23-29 DRA)
The Gospel reading for this sixth Sunday of Easter comes from the beginning of Our Lord’s Farewell Discourse, which is appropriate leading up to Ascension Sunday next week. For this reflection, I would like to focus on precisely what it means for the Trinity to make His “abode” within us, as Christ said, and what it means to love God.
One of the founding doctrines and human traditions of Protestantism is sola fide, or justification by faith alone by grace operative in good works. The exact definition of this teaching, like others of Protestantism, varies by each denomination and individual, and it is not the goal of this reflection to examine it. I bring it up to distinguish it from the teaching of the Church and Scripture, which, in today’s passage, makes clear the ultimate importance of love or charity in Christian salvation.
According to the words of Our Lord, the Trinity dwells in us, and we therefore participate in the divine life, are justified of our sins and saved from damnation, by love, which is demonstrated through obedience to God’s commandments. This is why elsewhere He said, recalling the central precept of the entire Law, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. And the second is like to this: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” (Jn 22:37-39) This is the Great Commandment, from which all other commandments, both of the old Law and the new Law of love in the Gospel proceed.
But this love isn’t the same as mere human affection, benevolence or altruism. Anyone can do a good work, and while all good works come from the inspiration of God and the natural law He instills in us, charity is a special gift infused by His grace at Baptism. It gives the power to love with the very love of God, to love God and neighbor just as He loves us, and to love Him above all creatures. This power cannot, contrary to Pelagianism, come from ourselves but by the gratuity of God’s grace alone, and it is only by charity that we are able to obey all the commandments of the old and new Law.
Faith is often treated as a single thing, and in a sense, this is quite true: it is a habit residing primarily in the intellect, by which we know God as First Truth. But it also involves the activity of the will, both to prompt the intellect to assent to the truths of revelation which are not evident and to quicken faith with charity. If charity is absent, faith is dead, as St. James wrote (Jas 2:26), much to the consternation of the first Protestants, and a dead faith, while still a certain perfection, is no virtue, nor is it justifying or saving. Someone who believes in God, who submits to His divine authority, but does not love Him above all things or his neighbor for God’s sake, does not participate in the divine life of the Trinity. In this way, one may have (dead) faith without charity, whereas faith naturally precedes charity, as we can only love what we know. Accordingly, both faith and charity are necessary for salvation.
This is the message of Our Lord in the Gospel today. The comfortable words with which He opens tend to be more emphasized, while the following verse is conveniently neglected: “He that loveth me not, keepeth not my words.” Faith without works is only a dead faith; a Christian who claims to believe in the Gospel and in the articles of faith as taught by the Church, but who lacks charity and disobeys God’s commandments, is a Christian in name only. Likewise, someone who obstinately disbelieves in even one article of faith has no faith at all, submitting only to his own will and judgment instead of to the authority of God which, “by the Holy Spirit and by us,” seals and immaculately preserves the Tradition of the Church, even against attempts by Catholics themselves to disfigure it. As St. Thomas Aquinas taught,
Now it is manifest that he who adheres to the teaching of the Church, as to an infallible rule, assents to whatever the Church teaches; otherwise, if, of the things taught by the Church, he holds what he chooses to hold, and rejects what he chooses to reject, he no longer adheres to the teaching of the Church as to an infallible rule, but to his own will.
As we seek to grow in charity in preparation for Ascension Sunday and Pentecost, let us perform regular and sincere acts of contrition and seek the grace of the Sacraments by which charity can be restored to our souls after we sin, so that our faith, murdered by sin, may be brought back to life.
Let us also pray that the new budget bill in the US will pass through the Senate and defund Planned Parenthood, depriving it of millions of tax dollars with which it murdered over 400,000 unborn children in 2024 while also promoting other grave evils such as contraception and infanticide.
St. Philip Neri, Apostle of Joy, whose feast day is tomorrow, ora pro nobis! For more information on the Apostle of Rome, founder of the Oratorians and patron saint of J.R.R. Tolkien, check out my article on him for Catholic Insight or at Saint Tolkien!
(Cover image source: St. Philip Neri preaching: https://catholicmagazine.news/st-philip-neri-prophet-of-christian-joy/)