Charity is a love of God for His own sake. In its perfection, it banishes self altogether. It does not turn the mind to self or to that which self desires. It thinks only of God, His greatness, and His goodness. It seeks to promote His honor and His glory, simply for the sake of promoting the honor and glory of One so infinitely worthy of our love and homage, quite independently of any reward or gain that is to accrue to ourselves thereby.
Is this the nature of my love of God?
Yet if "charity begins at home" and we necessarily as rational beings seek what is good for ourselves, how is this disinterested love possible? It is possible because those who possess it find their highest and purest happiness in this forgetfulness of self. In their very neglect of the interests of self, they are actually procuring for themselves the greatest of all rewards — the joy that comes of loving and serving God simply and solely for His own sake.
Do those who have this charity in their hearts seek at the same time the eternal blessedness of Heaven? Some saints (like Moses and Saint Paul), in an ecstasy of love, protested that they would willingly forfeit the prospect of their own eternal happiness if by doing so they could promote the glory and honor of God. They did not mean thereby to relinquish the hope of Heaven, but that their Heaven was formed in this highest love and any happiness save this was as nothing in their eyes. The highest charity indeed includes a longing after the Beatific Vision, but this is secondary to the absorbing love of God simply for His own sake, and, as so, worthy of our love.
- text from Charity, Meditations for a Month by Father Richard Frederick Clarke, SJ