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God is Love: Pope Benedict XVI’s First Encyclical

Part 2 of 3: The Nature of Love, The Essence of Divine Love

Homily

Sunday, February 12, 2006

St. Joseph Parish, Detroit

Last week, I began to discuss Pope Benedict XVI’s first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, God is Love, which he finished last Christmas and published in January of 2006. I mentioned that the Pope stated, “In a world where the name of God is sometimes associated with vengeance or even a duty of hatred and violence,… I wish in my first Encyclical to speak of the love which God lavishes upon us and which we in turn must share with others.” There are two parts to this encyclical, today we will discuss part one, and on the 26^th, we shall discuss part two.

The first part of the Encyclical focuses on the nature of divine love, that God is love and that God loves us. The second part discusses the Church’s love, that is to say, the Church’s love in the world today, the love we show to our neighbor as an individual and as a whole society.

Wisely following the best standards regarding how to demonstrate a point, he begins first stating the problem, then providing definitions. How often we get into pointless arguments, and the arguments turn into heated or uncharitable yelling matches, because both sides have not sufficiently understood the problem everyone is trying to solve, or because both sides are understanding the same key words in different ways.

The problem is this: are all … forms of love basically one, so that love, in its many and varied manifestations, is ultimately a single reality, or are we merely using the same word to designate totally different realities?” (n. 2) There is love for siblings, for neighbors, for country, and the exalted form of love which is the love between spouses. Are these all the same thing, or different things?

He then states that there are fundamentally two sides to love, as a coin is one but has two sides. There is the “descending” love, that which turns towards the world and the things in the world. It is a love that requires purification and healing. Then there is an “ascending” love, grounded and shaped by faith. It is impossible for us to be content with one or the other, for human love encompasses the whole man, body and soul, and the true association of these two dimensions of love meet and come to an understanding in the newness of biblical faith. We are not to love only man, or only God, but we are to love both.

That means that it is not enough for us to philosophize about love. We need to turn to the revelation of love. The scriptures, infallibly interpreted by the Catholic Church, teach us that God is our creator, and that he loves us, body and soul, with a personal love. Furthermore, the scriptures are full with nuptial images of love, which ultimately express the love which God and man should have for one another, that of a covenant and of total self-giving (n. 11).

The love that was revealed in the Old Testament, however, became flesh in the New Testament. God, who is love, came to earth, and he is Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, and he was made flesh. Jesus is, in a sense, the “sacrament” of love. He loved us first, and demands that we love as he loved, as the Father loves him: “Love can be ‘commanded,’” the Pope says, “because it has first been given.”

This command of love, however, is not an exterior imposition or constraint that fights against our own will. It is, “rather… a freely-bestowed experience of love from within, a love which by its very nature must then be shared with others. Love grows through love.” Therefore there is a strict union between the love we have for God and the love we have for neighbor.

[Applications] Since the first part of this encyclical deals with love, we need to ask ourselves, “well, how does the world today understand love,” for our own minds have been influenced by the surrounding world, and we are the first ones who need to purify our minds.

One way to understand love is looking at it like purely carnal love. Often this is what enters the minds of teens and young adults, for this is the version of love presented to them in popular music and cinema. I have more than once had the experience of speaking to teens about the love of God only to elicit giggles.

Another erroneous way to understand love is by reducing the one we love to an object of use. One can use the other person whom he loves, be he or she one’s spouse, sibling, friend, work companion or even son or daughter. One can use the other for pleasure, for convenience, for utilitarian purposes to attain an ulterior end, for money, for work so one can be lazy while the other labors, for pride, and so on. Pope John Paul II, I believe in his book Love and Responsibility, asserts that the opposite of love is not hate, but use.

Another very widespread error about love is that is it a feeling. It is true that there is an emotion, a feeling, a passion, a sentiment of love. But we human beings share this with some animals; those of you with pets, such as house dogs, know that even animals can have feelings of love. But human love is greater than this. The standard of this love was revealed in the person of Jesus Christ, who died on the cross out of love for his enemies; for by sin we declared ourselves enemies of God.

If you wish to love, love God to the point of giving your life for him, all your life, every moment of your life, every dimension of your life. Then turn to look at your neighbor: see that the Son of God died on the cross also for him. If God loves him so, why can’t I? The pope says in the Encyclical, “His friend is my friend” (n. 18), that is, “God’s friend is my friend.”

May Mary, the Mother of God, enable us to live this ascending and descending love, love for God above all things, and love for neighbor as ourselves.

We will continue to Part II of the encyclical on the last week of February.