“THE charity which the world has set up, which it calls Philanthropy, and which it exercises not in the name of God, but solely for the sake of man, this pretended virtue is a mere delusion, is incapable of producing love between those who give and those who receive, and its results must, necessarily, be unsatisfactory. There is but one tie, which can make men love one another: that tie is God, Who created them all, and commands them all to be one in Him. To serve mankind for its own sake, is to make a god of it; and even viewing the workings of the two systems in this single point of view, the relief they afford to temporal suffering, what comparison is there between mere Philanthropy, and that supernatural Charity of the humble disciples of Christ, who make Him the very motive and end of all they do for their afflicted brethren? The Saint, we honour today, was called John of God, because the Name of God was ever on his lips. His heroic acts of charity had no other motive than that of pleasing God; God alone was the inspirer of the tender love he had for his suffering fellow-creatures. Let us imitate his example, for our Lord assures us, that he considers as done to Himself, whatsoever we do even for the least of his disciples.”

— Dom Prosper Gueranger, “St. John of God,” The Liturgical Year, 1870

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