Love (and to be Loved)

“…I can tell you that being loved by God, and loving Him in return, is the greatest joy given to creatures, and that without it there is no real and lasting happiness for humanity…Because we are commanded to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and are also commanded to love our neighbor, our fellow human beings, as ourselves, it is proper that we should therefore place a special focus on that one unique person who is both our God and our neighbor: I mean, of course, Jesus Christ. Only in loving Christ do we directly fulfill both of the two greatest commandments because only He is fully God and fully man.” (Fr. Thomas Hopko, Timothy G. Patitsas)

“Love is not a passive response. It is an active extension of our being towards others. Love engages the will at its most fundamental level. There is a reason that the love of God and the love of neighbor are considered the very heart of the commandments. If our “nature” inherently desires to be conformed to the image of Christ and to be united to God, and God “is love,” then actively extending ourselves in love is the very heart of true asceticism and the cornerstone of the spiritual life.” (Father Stephen Freeman)

“Yes. It’s true. The Lord is my beloved. In fact, He will be and will always be my first love, my truest love, and my most enduring love. I was created by God. I am His child. “For you formed my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb” (Psalm 31:13). And He sent His Son to redeem me. To save me. And not only is the Lord our “beloved, but He is also the beloved of His Father. “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17). God, our Father, gave us His Son, our greatest gift. He is beloved to God and He is beloved to us. “To the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed upon us in the Beloved” (Ephesians 1:6).” (Jackie Morfesis)

“While in the modern world we think of love as something experienced in the heart, some ancient Church Fathers thought of love very differently. Love is the medium through which we encounter the divine. Love is not an emotion but the very way in which we experience God. Sight (icons, but also nature), sound (hymns as well as the spoken word) even smells (incense, savory food) are all ways in which God’s love is encountered and through which His love enters into our being…The message is clear: it is not because of our sins that Christ dies on the cross, but rather because God loves us that Christ died on the cross and rose from the dead. It is for all humanity that the Son of God dies on the cross. All of Christ’s activities are governed by His love for us. Christ is abolishing death and canceling the debt of sin. Those, however, are not the reasons He became incarnate, we are! God is not focused on our sins (He is abolishing those), rather the love of God is focused on us.” (Fr. Ted Bobosh)

“Love of God is the most important precept of Christian teaching and the foundation of a Christian’s life. Therefore, we must work tirelessly to ensure that this feeling doesn’t waver in us, and with it our entire spiritual life. When we love someone, we always want to be with them, to see them and feel joy and comfort from them. But God is unseen, and therefore we can’t wish for Him to be physically near to us. So then how can we love God? Love for the Lord is manifested through love for what is good, pure, and true within or without a man; God is supreme goodness, purity, and truth. Therefore, whoever has the desire and longing for these three qualities in his heart has love for the Lord.” (St. Gabriel of Imereti)

“If there is one resilient and God given aspect of us that has remained intact throughout history and time, it is our innate desire to love and be loved. At our core we want to belong. We want to be loved and needed. Safety has also always been important for us. We like to feel safe. No matter how ugly or disturbing the world becomes, no matter who we are, this innate yearning for love and safety holds true. Perhaps the real tragedy is when this innate urge and desire becomes buried under layers of hurt, alienation, anger, and fear. When this occurs, the one who just wanted to be loved like everyone else, can become the stereotypical difficult person. We then suffer hurt, stress, and alienation from our encounters with them. In the end, we lose the perspective that this difficult person is just someone who wanted to love and be loved, but sadly fell victim to a fallen world. Somewhere in their life, something went terribly awry. There is always a story to every human soul.” (Fr. Joshua Makoul)

“We’re not born guilty for our parent’s sin, but eventually their broken lives, and the lives of others around us, affect us in ways that lead to our own fragmentation. Each of us was created to be loved perfectly and completely, but no matter how sincerely our parents try, our experience of love is always incomplete. They can never love us with all of the love we were intended to receive, the love of God. This is the reality of life outside the Garden.” (Kevin Scherer)

“Sometimes, during conversations, we sense anger or other undesired emotions in the tone of our loved ones, but this anger could be nothing more than an emotional expression of the deep discomfort from our current situation, a desire to be loved more…Our inordinate need to be loved can often make the image we have of ourselves quite brittle, leading us to overreact.” (Fr. Bassam Nassif, Robert J. Wicks)

“Deep down, I desire to be loved. But since I cannot believe this is possible, what I can and do experience instead is being needed and/ or being wanted. But St. Porphyrios warns us about seeking to be loved. Rather, he says, we should love others, and it is up to them whether they love us. Sometimes I may love another only because I want them to love me back, but this is not the Christlike love the saint speaks of. Or I may imagine that I love another when I am actually just feeling some of the intensity of the love they are directing at me.” (Andrew Williams)

“Love, in its purest form is a ‘one way street’ in a sense, meaning that when we express love it should not be motivated by the expectation of receiving love. This does not mean that we don’t want to receive love when we express it. Of course we do. We need love from others to literally survive. Rather, it means that if our love is in any way diminished because our expectation is not met, it shows us that our love is imperfect. It also doesn’t mean that we may not be hurt, or even hurt deeply; it just means our love should not grow less. It’s a high standard Christ sets for us but He does so because we are actually made for it. If we do feel our love diminish due to our hurt, we should not beat ourselves up because we can’t love perfectly as He loves. What we should do is bring this to prayer in humble acknowledgement of our weakness and ask Him for the grace to become more loving.” (Sacramental Living Ministries)

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