And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
1 Corinthians 13:13
Love is the greatest virtue of all. There are three theological virtues; faith, hope, and love; yet, Sacred Scriptures tell us that the greatest of all is love, or the virtue of charity. This makes sense for a couple of reasons, first, God is love and the essence of true love is God, and second, faith and hope are virtues that we need during our mortal lives (in this fallen world where we experience tribulations, sickness, injustices, and the consequences of sins) but they will not be needed in Heaven where only perfect and true love will remain for eternity.
Charity [is], in Christian thought, the highest form of love, signifying the reciprocal love between God and man that is made manifest in unselfish love of one’s fellow men.”
Britannica.com/topic/charity-Christian-concept
The virtue of charity represents the virtue of true love. It is a theological virtue, meaning that it is supernaturally infused by God in our souls, and therefore, it can’t be fully attained without God’s grace. For this reason, when we say that we love someone or are told that we are loved, the degree to which this love is true and long-lasting (eternal) is dependent on whether it is rooted in charity and the grace of God.
Charity from the Latin “caritas” is a translation of the Greek word “ἀγάπη” (agapē) which means love. To be more specific, agapē refers to divine love, the highest form of love.
Sadly, in English, we often cheapen the meaning of the word love because we use it in many different contexts: we love food, cars, hobbies, pets, people, and God. We also think of love as something that can die over time, and it’s normal to hear people saying “We got divorced because we didn’t love each other anymore, the love faded over time” or even worse, people believe that it is possible to go from loving someone to hating them. The truth is, that true love is eternal because it is the essence of God.
The Greeks did a better job, by using different words for different types of “loves”:
- Epithumia – in a positive sense, it refers to physical desire or appetite, and in a negative sense it refers to lust.
- Eros – refers to romance or erotism.
- Storgē – refers to affection or belonging.
- Philia – refers to friendship and companionship.
- Agapē – refers to true love, divine love.
Truly, an intense and blissful marriage would combine all of the elements listed above: physical desire, romance, affection and a sense of belonging, friendship, and above all true love. Notice, however, that only agapē refers to true love, because it is divine, but in our secular world we have learned to associate a combination of only the first two to four elements as true love, and ignorantly think they would be enough for marriage. In the best cases, at least the couple has forged a friendship before committing, but in the worst cases, physical desire and romance are all it takes. This is why we continue seeing so many divorces, even among Christians, because when they chose to get married, agapē was not present and it was never present in their unions.
Unfortunately, all of these failed relationships lead many to give up altogether on love, closing their hearts completely for the rest of their lives. They don’t understand that they never even scratched the tip of the iceberg when it came to true love, and instead of growing in this virtue, they let their ignorance and fear take over. Instead of seeking true love, they let the pain experienced in loveless relationships (or in relationships where only temporary, lower forms of affection were misunderstood as love) dictate their understanding of true love. To truly love our friends, parents, spouses, children, neighbors, and even our enemies is only possible with the virtue of charity.
True Love Stems From God
God is love, and therefore, all love stems from God. It is the love of God for us that also makes us capable of loving Him back and loving others. The more we accept God’s love towards us, the more we will grow in this virtue. We need to accept God’s love and grace and pray for an increase in the virtue of charity to be able to experience true love in our lives.
Please meditate on this truth daily “God loves you!”. Yes, He does! He loves you with the desire to be united with you spiritually, in an affectionate way wanting to belong to each other as a parent and child, as a friend who always wants to be with you, and eternally in a divine way from the very first moment in which He created you.
God even loves you in a romantic way, not in our understanding of romance between a man and a woman, but with the same obsession and passion. For this reason, we are taught that the Church is the Bride of Christ and that He gave His own life for the Church, and you!
God’s love for us is intense and encompasses the best of the best, in the most perfect and purest forms. His love for us goes beyond what we can ever imagine.
God loves you! Yes, He does!
Please internalize this truth, and meditate on it each single day of your life.
Seeking Order in Our Affections
True love is a virtue supernaturally infused by God, but we should strive to order our affections, passions, and acts of sacrifice according to God’s will, and this is a choice that we need to make on our own, so that God can help us with this task too. We often suffer deeply in our quest to find true love as a result of our ignorance, not only by failing to properly define true love but also by failing to properly order our love. This isn’t always our fault, we aren’t taught about love at school, and many of us have a very wrong understanding of this virtue because we’ve had bad examples of what “love” supposedly is.
God can supernaturally infuse the gift of charity in our souls, but in our free will we have to administer this gift wisely. Unless we take action and choose to use our gifts, they will go to waste (Matthew 25:14-30). Practicing a virtue is like practicing an art form. It takes effort, discipline, talent, and guidance from a master in the art, someone who can pass their practical wisdom on to us. When it comes to theological virtues, our master is God himself through His Word in the Bible and the Church (Luke 2:13-14). The talent (or capacity for virtue) is supernaturally infused by the grace of God. With God’s grace and His Word, we only need to be willing to act. Remember, even if we lack the grace necessary to be charitable at this point, a simple act of praying for more talents when we don’t feel capable enough (Luke 11:9-13), is all God needs from us to begin our transfiguration and grow in virtue. However, once we are given the grace necessary to love, we must choose to act and practice it.
So how do we perfect ourselves in the virtue of charity and not let it go to waste?
Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.'”
Matthew 22:37-39
True Love Begins with Loving God
The first of the Great Commandments is to love God wholeheartedly.
No matter how much we believe that we love someone else, or that they love us, if neither their love nor ours is anchored in true love towards God first, then this “love” is not unconditional but rather circumstantial, transactional, or a combination of both. Love that isn’t anchored in God’s love, is counterfeit love. It can easily begin with admiration and end with disgust, or initially feel like a blessing but end up feeling like a curse. It is the kind of love where no matter how many good moments you spend with each other, you can’t truly rely on that person when things get difficult. And how true can love be if you abandon each other in sickness, after losing a job, or when life gets stressful and instead of building each other up you end up tearing each other apart?
When we organize our love, we put God first, and prioritize a relationship with Him over everyone else. Only then, we will be able to truly love others and to better at discerning who are the people who truly love us.
When we love God first, we learn to put our trust in Him rather than in other humans. When we love God first we also learn to believe in His promises and to trust His plan for us in our lives, even when it seems like everything is going wrong. Think of Joseph, who was betrayed by his brothers, some of whom wanted to murder him. He trusted God even when he was sold into slavery, slandered by his master’s wife, and put in prison for three years. Despite this, his love for God gave him faith and strength, and ultimately he was blessed and became the second most powerful man in Egypt after Pharaoh. Joseph saved several nations and his own family because he allowed himself to be an instrument of God. His love for God also gave him the strength necessary to forgive his brothers (who had repented).
When we love God first, we also get better at seeking and accepting the graces that He continuously and gratuitously extends to us. Graces that are necessary to love ourselves humbly and to love others in the same way that we love ourselves. Graces that protect us because we can’t see the hearts of others, but God can. He is the only one who can guide us into the right relationships with the right people who also love Him first.
Reciprocating God’s love towards us first and foremost, is the root of true charity. Only in God can we find the strength to truly love and accept love, expand our capacity for it, heal our wounds, and avoid idolizing others.
Idolatry Isn’t Love
Idolatry, in simple terms, is not loving God first. When we love anything or anyone else above God (either with our actions, attention, choices, etc.) our love gets corrupted and sooner or later loses the divine virtue of charity. Loving or worshipping something or someone above God is idolatry.
When we don’t properly organize our love, we can end up putting others in our lives before God. If we have bad intentions this can lead us to complete corruption, especially if we are prideful and love ourselves first. But, even if we have good intentions, this can lead us to be very easy targets for narcissists and selfish people who can destroy us and cause us unnecessary suffering.
We could make huge sacrifices for others if we put them first, and we’ll deceive ourselves by thinking that these are huge acts of love, but unless we have our sight on God first, we could be hurting ourselves, and enabling a selfish person to become more corrupted. Ultimately, what we are doing is idolizing a human being which isn’t true love. We might do this out of co-dependence, insecurity, or a desire to be loved back by an object of our affection (at least for the moment). We can also do this out of societal pressure, internal or external expectations, or because we believe that giving and sacrificing ourselves is an act of selfless love, and it can be when we are completely anchored in the love of God, but otherwise, our sacrifices might be in vain and cause unnecessary harm.
For steadfast love rather than sacrifice is what pleases me, and knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.”
Hosea 6:6
True love is to lead someone else to their greatest good, which is God and Heaven. True sacrifices are those done out of love for God or that lead others to their greatest good, not in earthly terms, but in divine terms.
When we are not anchored in God two things might happen:
- We corrupt ourselves and become selfish, unloving, self-centered, prideful, etc.
- We suffer unnecessarily because we can’t set healthy boundaries and become targets to people who will take advantage of us (like the people mentioned on the point above).
Many times, the man or woman who idolizes a spouse or a child, is also the first person who once the other party fails can’t believe the betrayal and has a very difficult time forgiving because of all of the sacrifices they’ve made. Yet, we know that true love is forgiveness, and forgiveness is both a gift to ourselves as well as a sacrifice rooted in true love for God (we sacrifice our anger, and pride, and let go of the offense). It’s not that someone who has given a lot doesn’t possess beautiful qualities and intentions, but unless those acts are rooted in God’s love, they can be very misguided, harmful, and even a form of toxic codependency. The issue isn’t a lack of capacity for love. No! The issue is not organizing love in the proper order, enabling toxicity when a strong boundary would have been true charity, and possibly giving too much to people God didn’t want for us.
Love can strengthen with sacrifices, but not when these sacrifices are in vain or out of codependency. Love is building each other up, leading each other towards virtue, and enjoying each other genuinely. Love is more than simply giving to make someone happy for a moment. Love is giving with purpose to lead someone to God and eternal bliss.
For steadfast love rather than sacrifice is what pleases me, and knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.”
Hosea 6:6
Loving Ourselves Matters
We are told to love others as we love ourselves.
We are not told to love others more or less than ourselves, but just as much as we love ourselves. God in His wisdom knows that this is what is best for us. Therefore, if we want to grow in charity, we should also focus on loving ourselves.
For this self-love to be healthy, it also needs to be rooted in our love towards God first. Otherwise, our self-love can be destructive leading to hedonism, selfishness, and pride. Think of Lucifer, once an angel of great beauty, he loved himself more than God and this disorderly love was the root of his pride, eventually leading to his fall and self-disfigurement.
God doesn’t ask us to love himself above others and even ourselves because he is selfish. No! If another human asks us to love him or her above ourselves, we can easily conclude that they truly are being selfish and want to be worshipped for their own sake. However, God asks us to love Him first for our own sake, because He is the source of all goodness, wisdom, love, truth, justice, and mercy. In Him, our self-love is secure and free of corruption and deceit, which can come from our enemy or even ourselves.
True love towards ourselves should be expressed in healthy ways such as being patient with ourselves, forgiving ourselves, and being compassionate towards ourselves. Self-love can be expressed by not sabotaging ourselves, not self-loathing ourselves for our flaws but humbly accepting our imperfections knowing that God loves us and therefore, we are lovable (yet being open to be transfigured by God to shed vices and sin). Self-love is telling ourselves “Trust God, He loves you” instead of “I’m so stupid” or “I always ruin things for everyone”.
Self-love is respecting ourselves, our bodies, our temples. Self-love is crying out to God when we are sad, seeking true love, accepting consolation, and accepting love.
Life is full of challenges, bullies, and people who put us down, so we don’t need to add to our burdens. Instead, we should remember the definition of love in 1 Corinthians 13, and strive to love ourselves in that manner: with patience, kindness, humility, respect, without anger, not keeping a record of our mistakes, rejoicing with the truth, protecting ourselves, trusting ourselves in God, hoping for the best in our lives, and persevering until the end. Love never fails, so please, don’t fail yourself! Love yourself every day!
Love Your Neighbor As Yourself
You love God wholeheartedly and above everyone, even above yourself.
You love yourself too, with the kindness and patience that God would like you to extend to yourself.
And this is the point where you can be ready to love others: to love others is to desire for them their greatest good which is exactly what God wants for them and ourselves. God wants us to be eternally blissful, to be humble at heart, to repent and convert, to experience deep and everlasting love, to honor ourselves and others, to be wise, to align with the truth, and to succeed (love never fails).
When we understand this, we can pray for our enemies so that they will convert and experience the love of God, because we know it is good. We can forgive those who deeply hurt us because we understand that evilness is a sign of being separated from the love of God. We can set healthy boundaries because we understand that to have healthy relationships, true love has to be reciprocal. We can also walk away from people who dishonor us, without anger or bitterness, still with love, because we trust God and His guidance (Matthew 10:11-14, Matthew 7:6). Especially when it comes to marriage, we can only build honest and strong marriages with spouses who truly care about us as much as we care for them, and this care is reflected in loyalty, a reciprocal desire for a lifelong union until death, and a desire to mutually share the love of God and obey Him.
God must be our rock when we build loving relationships (Matthew 7:24-27).
If you are ever in doubt, continue reading the Bible, and pray incessantly asking for the graces necessary to grow in the virtue of charity.