What the Church means by love
We love each other. Why is that not the answer?
"To love is to will the good of another." St. Thomas Aquinas, STh I-II, 26, 4, corp. art. All other affections have their source in this first movement of the human heart toward the good. Only the good can be loved. Cf. St. Augustine, De Trin., 8, 3, 4: PL — Patrologia Latina (Migne). Passions "are evil if love is evil and good if it is good." St. Augustine, De civ. Dei 14, 7, 2: PL — Patrologia Latina (Migne).
God who created man out of love also calls him to love the fundamental and innate vocation of every human being. For man is created in the image and likeness of God who is himself love. Cf. Gen 1:27; 1 Jn 4:8, 16. Since God created him man and woman, their mutual love becomes an image of the absolute and unfailing love with which God loves man. It is good, very good, in the Creator's eyes. and this love which God blesses is intended to be fruitful and to be realized in the common work of watching over creation: "and God blessed them, and God said to them: 'Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it.'" Gen 1:28; cf. 1:31.
Charity is the theological virtue by which we love God above all things for his own sake, and our neighbor as ourselves for the love of God.
Jesus makes charity the new commandment. Cf. Jn 13:34. By loving his own "to the end," Jn 13:1. he makes manifest the Father's love which he receives. By loving one another, the disciples imitate the love of Jesus which they themselves receive. Whence Jesus says: "As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love." and again: "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you." Jn 15:9, 12.
Fruit of the Spirit and fullness of the Law, charity keeps the commandments of God and his Christ: "Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love." Jn 15:9-10; cf. Mt 22:40; Rom 13:8-10.
Christ died out of love for us, while we were still "enemies." Rom 5:10. The Lord asks us to love as he does, even our enemies, to make ourselves the neighbor of those farthest away, and to love children and the poor as Christ himself. Cf. Mt 5:44; Lk 10:27-37; Mk 9:37; Mt 25:40, 45.
The Apostle Paul has given an incomparable depiction of charity: "charity is patient and kind, charity is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Charity does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Charity bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." 1 Cor 13:4-7.
"If I . . . have not charity," says the Apostle, "I am nothing." Whatever my privilege, service, or even virtue, "if I . . . have not charity, I gain nothing." 1 Cor 13:1-4. Charity is superior to all the virtues. It is the first of the theological virtues: "So faith, hope, charity abide, these three. But the greatest of these is charity." 1 Cor 13:13.
The practice of all the virtues is animated and inspired by charity, which "binds everything together in perfect harmony"; Col 3:14. it is the form of the virtues; it articulates and orders them among themselves; it is the source and the goal of their Christian practice. Charity upholds and purifies our human ability to love, and raises it to the supernatural perfection of divine love.
The practice of the moral life animated by charity gives to the Christian the spiritual freedom of the children of God. He no longer stands before God as a slave, in servile fear, or as a mercenary looking for wages, but as a son responding to the love of him who "first loved us": Cf. 1 Jn 4:19.
If we turn away from evil out of fear of punishment, we are in the position of slaves. If we pursue the enticement of wages, . . . we resemble mercenaries. Finally if we obey for the sake of the good itself and out of love for him who commands . . . we are in the position of children. St. Basil, Reg. fus. tract., prol. 3 PG — Patrologia Graeca (Migne) B.
The fruits of charity are joy, peace, and mercy; charity demands beneficence and fraternal correction; it is benevolence; it fosters reciprocity and remains disinterested and generous; it is friendship and communion: Love is itself the fulfillment of all our works. There is the goal; that is why we run: we run toward it, and once we reach it, in it we shall find rest. St. Augustine, In ep. Jo. 10, 4: PL — Patrologia Latina (Migne).
Among the virtues in their entirety, and in particular between virtues, social values and love, there exists a deep bond that must be ever more fully recognized. Love, often restricted to relationships of physical closeness or limited to merely subjective aspects of action on behalf of others, must be reconsidered in its authentic value as the highest and universal criterion of the whole of social ethics. Among all paths, even those sought and taken in order to respond to the ever new forms of current social questions, the “more excellent way” (cf. 1 Cor 12:31) is that marked out by love.
It is from the inner wellspring of love that the values of truth, freedom and justice are born and grow. Human life in society is ordered, bears fruits of goodness and responds to human dignity when it is founded on truth; when it is lived in justice, that is, in the effective respect of rights and in the faithful carrying out of corresponding duties; when it is animated by selflessness, which makes the needs and requirements of others seem as one's own and intensifies the communion of spiritual values and the concern for material necessities; when it is brought about in the freedom that befits the dignity of men and women, prompted by their rational nature to accept responsibility for their actions Cf. John XXIII, Encyclical Letter Pacem in Terris: AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 55 (1963) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1963), 265-267.. These values constitute the pillars which give strength and consistency to the edifice of life and deeds: they are values that determine the quality of every social action and institution.
Love presupposes and transcends justice, which “must find its fulfilment in charity” John Paul II, Message for the 2004 World Day of Peace, 10: AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 96 (2004) at vatican.va — list of its scanned parts (2004), 120.. If justice is “in itself suitable for ‘arbitration' between people concerning the reciprocal distribution of objective goods in an equitable manner, love and only love (including that kindly love that we call ‘mercy') is capable of restoring man to himself” John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Dives in Misericordia, 14: AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 72 (1980) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1980), 1223.. Human relationships cannot be governed solely by the measure of justice: “The experience of the past and of our own time demonstrates that justice alone is not enough, that it can even lead to the negation and destruction of itself ... It has been precisely historical experience that, among other things, has led to the formulation of the saying: summum ius, summa iniuria” John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Dives in Misericordia, 12: AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 72 (1980) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1980), 1216.. In fact, “in every sphere of interpersonal relationships justice must, so to speak, be ‘corrected' to a considerable extent by that love which, as St. Paul proclaims, ‘is patient and kind' or, in other words, possesses the characteristics of that merciful love which is so much of the essence of the Gospel and Christianity” John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Dives in Misericordia, 14: AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 72 (1980) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1980), 1224; cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2212..