Everlasting love

"God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him" (1 Jn 4:16).

This introductory sentence of the first encyclical of Pope Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est, "On Christian Love", already gives an outright exposition and a strong grounding to the value of love. The adjective "Christian" qualifies and makes love special. Why?

For the Pope, love is of two kinds: eros and agape. Eros is a love that is worldly, possessive and ascending. Its focus is the self. Agape is a self-giving, generous, descending and divine love. Its focal point is the other. The encyclical gives a profoundly spiritual characterisation of agape when it says love is indeed "ecstasy", not in the sense of a moment of intoxication, but rather as a journey, an ongoing exodus out of the closed, inward-looking self towards its liberation through self-giving and thus towards authentic self-discovery and indeed the discovery of God: "Whoever seeks to gain his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will preserve it." (Lk 17:33)" (Deus Caritas Est, 6).

What stirs agape and makes it possible to be thought of, decided upon and lived for is the Eucharist. Pope Benedict clearly has in mind that the Eucharistic liturgy is the alpha and the omega of the Church's activity. It is the venue whereby the Christian faithful learn new ways of thinking, understanding and relating with reality. The secret for such a transformation in their love is precisely their "enter(ing) into the very dynamic of his (Christ's) self-giving"; their "union with God through sharing in Jesus' self-gift, sharing in his body and blood". (Deus Caritas Est, 13). Thus, the Eucharist becomes for the Christians the school where their eros is purified and matured to the extent that from a boring, hopeless and fragmented "I" becomes the joyful, hopeful and integrated "we". Hence, Christian love is eternalised. It is modelled on that eternal agape which holds the Blessed Trinity (Blessed "We") together, and assures its perfect, eternal and loving communion.

Lord Jesus Christ, teach us to know and love you more. Make us capable of loving all for your sake. Order the way we think, feel and act, so that our ability to love becomes itself living water capable of quenching the thirst of those who are thirsting for love. AMEN.