The Virtue of Love

The number of concepts of love is bewildering. Yet all love is moving towards something or someone because of the good in it. A lover’s first wish is that what he loves should continue & flourish: love shrinks in terror from the death or destruction of the other. Thus the greatest love of all, God’s for his children, required Him to devise the means of saving them from death.

Naturally, people feel strange, moved, excited to be the object of another’s love. In particular, we feel vulnerable when our moral failings are known to those who love us. The lover, after all, wishes everything about the other to be good & hates when the other chooses wickedly. Thus he is keen to look beyond the other’s flaws, see the good & forgive the very moment the beloved is sorry: love doesn’t hold grudges.

Christian love is not possible unless we first love the good in ourselves—then we can start to think about loving our neighbour ‘as ourselves’. Ultimately, we want to love others with something of the love we have for God, ie as persons with whom we hope to share Paradise.