“Where there is no love, put love and you will take out love.”
St. John of the Cross
Love is difficult to write about because it has already been written about so much. It is especially difficult to write about in English because it encompasses so many different meanings. That’s why the Greeks had multiple words for love, consider ‘eros’ (passionate, erotic love), and ‘phila’ (brotherly love). However, the Gospel authors chose to use ‘Agape’ as their word for Christ’s love.
Dostoevsky says that love in practice can be harsh and dreadful compared to love in dreams. John the evangelist says that God is Love. Kierkegaard notes that love must be humble to be powerful. Vanier says in order to love we must meet people. Greg Boyle says mystics replace fear with love. Che Guevera believed the true revolutionary must be guided by love. Tolstoy believed love was the only way to divine Truth. Teresa of Avila said “the important thing is not to think much but to love much.” She also said, “The Lord doesn’t look so much at the greatness of our works as the love with which they are done.” Martin Luther King Jr. said we can not love without being able to forgive. He also believed that it took strength and courage to love.
Dorothy Day wrote that those who do not believe in God, do believe in love, and that to distrust in the love of God is one of the greatest injustices one can do. She said that to be a saint is to be a lover. She said if you love, then you want to give yourself away. The Catholic Worker began as an experiment in learning how to love. In her autobiography she writes, “We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love, and that love comes with community.” She also understood the ordinary tasks that composes the majority of even the most radical Christian’s life but that when those moments are “transformed by love it is of interest even to the angels.”
Christ’s new commandment is to love one another as He has loved us. Jesus extended the commandment to love even our enemies. This love that Christ commands, this agape love, is an unconditional love. A love that seeks nothing in return and waits for nothing to be given. It’s a difficult task to accomplish but a goal which must remain always on the forefront of our hearts.
“Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides of gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then for the second time in the history of the world, man will discover fire.”
Teilhard de Chardin