Love. As a concept it is much talked about, misunderstood and desired. We all want it, but at the same time, we don’t really seem to know what it is, and that’s partly to do with our sinful nature.
Sin distorts of views on love. Whenever we presume to know better than God we are headed for trouble. Consider the contemporary representations of love – Ah, romance fiction, there really is nothing like it. Movies and books that consistently tell us that love is all about sex, or sex is all about love. The climax of the book, or movie, is the sexual climax – when the two characters come together in premarital sex. They sleep together therefore they must love each other, right?
Wrong.
But if this is our only experience of love, these representations that fall short of the mark – and are yet supported by music videos and sitcoms – we not going to recognise real love when we find it, and no doubt, we’ll try and find it in all the wrong places. Or we distort what love is really about.
One such distortion exists in the realm of feminism. Feminists, such as Germaine Greer, argue that Love and Marriage are a middle class myth designed to enslave and subject women to the domestic environment.
Love, says Greer is ‘an assertion of confidence in the self, an extension of narcissism to include one’s kind, variously considered.’ (The Female Eunuch pp168) In other words, an excessive self-confidence and admiration of ourselves coupled with a need for others to see how good we are. We over estimate ourselves and our good qualities and expect others to do the same… Sounds like vanity to me…
And Greer on romantic love? ‘In Love, as in pain, in shock, in trouble. Thus love is a state, presumably a temporary state, an aberration from the norm.’ (pp182) Perhaps it is obvious that Greer abhors any romantic notions and blames popular romantic fiction for coupling and relationships. In the end, the feminists who have us be vain and seek relationships only for sexual and personal gratification. And they wonder why they are such embittered women? How tragic to never experience – nor want to experience – real love.
So what is love? Love is many things, feelings, emotions and a desire for another’s happiness to take precedence of our own. Part of the illusive nature of a standard definition of love is that in English there really is only one word for love, and yet, many meanings are attributed to it.
Four loves
In essence there are really four types of love. So, stepping away from the inadequacies of translation, let’s look at the four loves:
Storge – Storge means ‘affection’ in both modern and ancient Greek. This type of love is described as a fondness due to familiarity and is found especially among family members. It is natural, familiar and is not based on the other’s qualities, or lack thereof, but rather on their practical proximity.
Phileo – This love is the strong bond of friendship which is based on similar interests, ideals and activities.
Eros – Eros is also known as marital love, or intimate love. It goes without saying that the term erotic is derived from eros. This love is that sense of being ‘in love’ and desires an emotional connection with the other being.
Agape – This concept of love is that which St Paul devoted much to in Chapter 13 in his Letter to the Corinthians: ‘ Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end.’ (1 Cor 13:4-8)
Agape is the love of God and Christ for mankind. The unconditional love that saw God gives us His only Son to die on the cross. The same love Jesus calls us to when he says ‘Greater love hath no man than to lay down his life for his friends.’ ( John 15:13)
So then, agape love is unconditional, self-sacrificing, active and considerate or thoughtful. It is also known as charity, and it one of the Theological virtues.
Love in action
Now, as we considered these different types of love, or aspects of, it would appear that Storge, Phileo and Eros are all feelings of that occur naturally – affection, friendship and romance – where agape is really a love that we have to put into action, it requires thought and work.
C.S. Lewis writes that storge, phileo and eros are all natural loves and that agape is a divine love. He argues that we need to subordinate these three natural loves to God, who is love.
Consider a married couple; in their relationship they feel love naturally through affection, friendship and romance. But if they did not practice agape, that is, the unconditional and self sacrificial love in action, would their natural love be enough to sustain them through the ups and downs of life?
Love and responsibility
In marriage we understand that there is a mutual self-giving. I give myself to my spouse, and he gives himself to me. We become one flesh in the Holy Sacrament of Marriage. Through living out agape, charity in action, we surrender ourselves including our own preferences and wants to our spouse, we desire their happiness above our own.
Now, if my husband gives himself totally to me, for the good of our marriage, then I have a responsibility to him. I am responsible for his being, happiness, emotional security and most importantly, his holiness.
The late Pope John Paul II wrote that ‘The greater the feeling of responsibility for the person the more true love there is.’ (Love and Responsibility pp 131).
Notice he did not say the greater the feeling, or emotion, he said the greater the responsibility the more powerful the love was.
And now, I believe, that we have hit the nail on the head. Love is about responsibility and self sacrifice. Putting the happiness of other’s ahead of our own. Yes, we can experience the wonderful natural loves of friendship, affection and romance, but the greatest of all these loves is the one we feel the least.
Agape, charity, is love in action. Love that does not rely on feeling, but on responsibility and a conscious decision to put ourselves last, and others first. Often it can feel the most unrewarding too, when others might take us for granted, or fail to see our love in action.
But this is when it matters the most. In putting this love in action, we are laying down our life for our friends, just as Jesus instructed us.
Courtesy of ave maria magazine
Originally posted 2013-11-05 03:05:02.