Four Loves: Another Version

I have long found C.S. Lewis's famous four loves (affection, friendship, agape and eros) a rich source of illumination into the unfathomable, inexhaustible and fascinating Mystery of Love. Lately, however, I have been considering a different model, rooted in the logos or structure of the family, which always entails four quite distinct, if interrelated loves: filial, paternal/maternal, fraternal-sororial, and spousal. For us as creatures, the primal love is filial: receptive, trusting, respectful, obedient and grateful. This is the love of child for father and mother, and of course for God. It is love as needy, poor, endearing and precious. This love, also known as piety or pietas, expresses itself as loyalty and affection to country, Church, family, the boss, older friends and siblings, priests and a variety of superiors and communities. The obverse of this love is paternal or maternal love as: generous, delighted, nurturing, protective, and tender. This is love as gentle strength. It finds expression far beyond biological parenthood in a myriad of spiritual, emotional and social relationships: boss, teacher, coach, priest, leader, and so forth. This love can be understood as a fusion of elements of what Lewis called affection and agape. Fraternal love is thelove of equals, brothers and sisters, who share the bond of blood and family, and cooperate and compete with each other accordingly. Normally, of course, one sibling is older and therefore a filial and parental dimension presents itself. But this love is essentially "philia" or friendship as understood by Lewis and entails a sharing of interests, values, and intentions and essentially an equality of status before the shared good. Lastly, spousal love as the love of husband and wife includes but is not exhausted by eros, desire for intimate union with the beloved. Spousal love, alone among these familial loves, includes sexual communion, but is much more also. As faithful and loyal love it is informed by agape as sacrificial and generous love. Spousal love is at once agape and eros: without agape it is fickle and self-destructing, without eros is becomes dry, sterile and joyless. Every love relationship is a mix of all four in an infinitely delightful diversity of surprise and delight. For example, the spousal relationship needs to be friendship more than eros, but at times either husband or wife properly become filial or parental towards the other. Likewise, every rich and thrilling friendship will partake, at times, of the filial, parental or spousal. Clearly, however there is an abiding structure to the family as it arises (as God intended) from the sexual union of the spouses and all other relationships are preserved in uncompromising chastity. These loves, in contrast to those of Lewis, are more real, concrete and less abstract. In this year of the Synod of the Family and the Supreme Court's deconstruction of family, these loves deserve our deepest reflection.

Priorities

With his usual insight, David Brooks of the NY Times last week contrasted two conservative reactions to the Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage: Rod Dreher and similar "traditional radicals" call for a retreat into our own communities of faith and family while Robert George and kindred spirits associated with First Things urge us to continue the fight as we have with the abortion war. Brooks admits he is to the left of us on these cultural issues but identifies with conservatives and advocates a third option: engage with those who are most hurting in the restoration of family life and wholesome moral and communal values. My opinion is that the Church has to do all three...and at the same time. And people will be called to focus on different concerns. But given the limitations of energy and stamina, we need to set priorities. From where I stand, Dreher and the "trad-rads" are right: first and foremost we must strengthen and thicken our Catholic identity and solidarity in the face of an increasingly hostile society. Secondly, we need to follow the leadership of Pope Francis in going out to the peripheries and reach out to share our (spiritual, moral, emotional, social, intellectual) wealth with the needy (including the most needy...the 1 percent!). Isolation like the Amish is not possible for the Catholic Church. Actually the Mormon paradign (despite its narrow "Americanist" focus) is more helpful. At this point, it is probably good for us to divert energies from the Culture War and enter into a "cold war" phase in which there are less heated, inflamatory clashes even as we stand firm in our own beliefs. We will persevere in the culture war but in more covert, subtle and subversive fashion, much like the way St. John Paul II fought the Nazis, the Communists and later the Cultural Liberals. Focusing more on micro than macro-politics, we must be modest about how much we can directly impact the broader society as we avoid the twin ideological temptations to attribute saving efficacy to the state (the left) or free markets and individual freedom (the right). Regarding Church policy, we must avoid setting our current pontiff against his two predecessors. Rather, let us cherish the JP-Benedict heritage even while we follow Francis to the margins of society. They need not be in conflict. A genuinely CATHOLIC ethos will include both in a mutual enrichment.

Homosexual Marriage

While hardly a fan of Jesuit Tom Reese, I largely agree with his view (NCR July 2,2015) on the Supreme Court ruling on homosexual marriage. He is right: we will learn to live with this as we have with other now-commonplace misguided practices like divorce-and-remarriage, cohabitation and so forth. Homosexual practice is basically in the same boat as premarital sex, pornography/masturbation, contraception in marriage and other varieties of sterile, non-unitive, extrinsic and mutually manipulative interplay. It is no better and no worse! The sin of Sodom is essentially the same as that of Onan. My own view is that intercourse between two men in a faithful, tender and generous relationship is a thousand times less disordered than the Clinton/Lewinski dalliance which was at once a desecration of his marriage, a predatory violation of a young woman who could be his daughter and abuse of his unbounded presidential, which is to say paternal status and power. The court's ruling is not an unmitigated evil and it is helpful to look on the positives: some may well benefit from a faithful and sanctioned relationship; many young people may experience enhanced self-esteem with the lifting of the social stigma; and lastly, the development is itself a strange and confused witness to the deep appeal of marriage. Perhaps because I am aging, aware of the limitations of my energy, and less the cultural warrior I was 20 years ago, I see that we must marshal and use our stamina in positive ways. As a "communio" Catholic and protege of St. John Paul II and Benedict, I see our first priority as deepening our own spiritual union with Christ our Bridegroom. Secondly, we need to strengthen our own marriages, vows, families and communities of faith, including our service of the least. Thirdly, we must remind ourselves that very few have been give the grace to understand the deepest, sacred and iconic meaning of sexuality and marriage and so we grow in gratitude and surrender to this blessing. Forth, we are free to appreciate those we love who experience and live out this attraction, as we deepen our own allegiance to what we know to be true. Lastly, we are clearly moving towards a more counter-cultural position as the society becomes actively hostile to the gospel vision of sexuality. Our disappointment and even alienation from the mainstream must surrender to our deeper Joy in our communion with Christ in His Church, our families and communities.