What is Love?

There are many types of love: the love of a friend, the love between family members, the love of a mother and her child, and the love between spouses… but this can all be very confusing. Is there just one-type-of-love that we can use across all of these?

Love’s only focus: the other

The hard question we all must ask ourselves is, do I love [so-and-so] for my own sake, or for theirs. Love’s only focus is - what is good for - the other. And love’s only aim is - how can I give myself for that good; even if in giving something for their good, I have to give up something for my good.

Love is NOT…

An emotion. Some sappy, sentimental, warm and fuzzy thing; a hot and steamy, pleasure and stimulation, romantic thing; thunderbolts and electricity, or some kind of invisible force that takes over my mind and body. These may be part of love, or side effects, but not love in itself. Love is certainly not something I do to get someone to love me back, or even just to like me, or to make the loneliness go away, or to feel better about myself. Love is something we do, for the GOOD of the other.

So does that means, love is just, giving “the other” what they want?

If your child desires something that is harmful to themselves, to you, or to anyone else, is it loving to give it to them? That is what we call, feebleness. Love gives only what is good for the other. The hard part is knowing the difference between that which only seems good, and that which actually is good. And Loving someone certainly DOES NOT MEAN, we stay in a situation that is harmful.

Love your enemies…. or, love the people you don’t like.

I once heard a Catholic priest say that the litmus test for all Christians is, love your enemy. Today, I don’t think any of us have many mortal enemies, or nemesis’s. But there are a lot of people we just don’t really like, or they don’t really like us. Here’s the thing: we can love love someone we don’t really like. Loving someone doesn’t mean we need to meet for coffee and cakes and become bff’s… it simply means, at the very least, genuinely wishing them the best in our hearts. This in turn, helps us to - let go - of that tension we have for others in heart.

How do we know what love is?

Because Love itself pierced the time and space barrier, broke into our world, and wrapped itself in flesh and blood, skin and bones, hair and teeth, in the form of a human person: Jesus Christ. And said, just do what I do. You may or may not believe this, but the only way to really know, is to look into it for ourselves.

One thing that cannot be denied, he gave his entire life, until his very last breath, his very last drop of blood (literally) for the other, to the point that he even loved those who were beating him to death, “forgive them, they know not what they do”.