The Collaborative International Dictionary
Charity \Char"i*ty\, n.; pl. Charities. [F. charit['e] fr. L. caritas dearness, high regard, love, from carus dear, costly, loved; asin to Skr. kam to wish, love, cf. Ir. cara a friend, W. caru to love. Cf. Caress.]
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Love; universal benevolence; good will.
Now abideth faith, hope, charity, three; but the greatest of these is charity.
--1. Cor. xiii. 13.They, at least, are little to be envied, in whose hearts the great charities . . . lie dead.
--Ruskin.With malice towards none, with charity for all.
--Lincoln. -
Liberality in judging of men and their actions; a disposition which inclines men to put the best construction on the words and actions of others.
The highest exercise of charity is charity towards the uncharitable.
--Buckminster. -
Liberality to the poor and the suffering, to benevolent institutions, or to worthy causes; generosity.
The heathen poet, in commending the charity of Dido to the Trojans, spake like a Christian.
--Dryden. -
Whatever is bestowed gratuitously on the needy or suffering for their relief; alms; any act of kindness.
She did ill then to refuse her a charity.
--L'Estrange. A charitable institution, or a gift to create and support such an institution; as, Lady Margaret's charity.
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pl. (Law) Eleemosynary appointments [grants or devises] including relief of the poor or friendless, education, religious culture, and public institutions.
The charities that soothe, and heal, and bless, Are scattered at the feet of man like flowers.
--Wordsworth.Sisters of Charity (R. C. Ch.), a sisterhood of religious women engaged in works of mercy, esp. in nursing the sick; -- a popular designation. There are various orders of the Sisters of Charity.
Syn: Love; benevolence; good will; affection; tenderness; beneficence; liberality; almsgiving. [1913 Webster] ||
Wikipedia
Many religious communities have the term Sisters of Charity as part of their name. While some Sisters of Charity communities refer to the Vincentian tradition, and in America to the tradition of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton those links are by no means universal. It is important to recognize that there may be no "family" or historical relationship between groups having the phrase Sisters of Charity as part of their name. The rule of Vincent de Paul for the Daughters of Charity has been adopted and adapted by at least sixty founders of religious institutes around the world in the subsequent centuries.
The Sisters of Charity (SC) is an Anglican religious order following the Rule of St. Vincent de Paul, and so committed to the service of those in need. The Order was founded in 1869. From their mission house in Plymouth, England, the sisters are involved in parish and mission work. The community also maintains a nursing home near Plymouth. The order maintains a confraternity of oblates.
Until 2008, the Order maintained a convent and guest house in Martinsburg, West Virginia, where the sisters were active in providing care to children and dogs. In that year, the American SC sisters took the decision to withdraw from the Order, and to unite with the Community of St. Mary (CSM). The sisters have relocated to the CSM convent at Sewanee, Tennessee.
Usage examples of "sisters of charity".
She was a casualty he had created long ago, in collaboration with her mother and father and Braithwaite and Uncle Benny and the Sisters of Charity and all the other people who made up the person he himself had become.
Patrick's Cathedral, together with a score of black-robed Sisters of Charity, representing the Association of Catholic Churches, were on the pier long before the Carpathia was made fast, and worked industriously in aiding the injured and ill.
Bronki next called the Sisters of Charity, telling them that there was a large supply of meat here waiting to be distributed to the poor, and could they possibly pick it up tonight?
The Sisters of Charity, Lady Helena and Mary Grant, never left him.
Anne's Sisters of Charity in Kansas City, Heart in Casa Adobes, Arizona.
On a visit later to a Paris orphanage run by Catholic Sisters of Charity, she was shown a large room with a hundred cribs and perhaps as many infants.
At 5:17, two bicycles ridden by nuns in full habits and white hats wheeled up from the south side of the boulevard, ringing the muted bells on their handlebars as they stopped in front of the house that was supposedly the quarters of the Magdalen Sisters of Charity.