Movements of Love

There are five distinct, but interwoven, movements in every love: care, esteem, delight, companionship and pain. Care is the desire for the well-being and flourishing of the beloved; it is tenderness in the face of suffering, fragility, vulnerability, misery and preciousness. It is particularly pronounced in maternal and paternal love. Esteem is appreciation for the goodness, virtue and inherent value of the beloved. It includes reverence for the profound, mysterious dignity of the other and admiration for particular qualities of goodness such as kindness, courage, intelligence, faith, and compassion. It is particularly strong in filial love towards parents and those we admire including leaders, heroes and saints. Delight is the heart and soul of love: it includes approval but goes beyond the cognitive to a celebrating joy in the beauty of the beloved. And so we see that at his baptism and transfiguration, Jesus is the object of his Father's delight:  "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." By companionship (from the Latin: "to have bread together") we mean here that friends, family or lovers always share in Good and goods, Truth and truths beyond themselves: family and children, mission and vocation, Church and community. Genuine love always opens up beyond the immediate relationship and overflows fruitfully and generously into eventfulness and novelty. Lastly we must acknowledge the dimension of suffering and loss that inevitably characterizes love as we know it. Pain and grief are inevitable, even as they take a variety of forms: death, disappointment, unrequited love, and tragedy of various kinds. Such suffering becomes meaningful as sacrifice when it purifies, expresses and strengthens the love. Quintessentially we see this sacrifice in Jesus on the cross: in the physical, psychological and spiritual agony (including the feeling of abandonment by his Father) he forgives the repentant thief, he forgives his torturers, and he consoles his mother and disciple. In this world love cannot avoid suffering; but in the person of Jesus we see that all love with all its pain is already infused with the Delight of heaven.