He's Shown Us Love

Strange worlds collided this week with the convergence of Valentine’s Day, Ash Wednesday and Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation announcement.

So how do these three events speak to us? The obvious answer: they speak of love.

The pope, in his encyclical “God Is Love,” teaches us about the ancient Greek terms for love, which include eros and agape.

Our modern notion of Valentine’s Day focuses on eros, a passionate type of love that seeks union with one’s beloved. Our culture has badly distorted eros, but it’s a noble aspect of God’s love.

Another face of love is agape. It is self-sacrificing love. Lent is all about agape, dying to oneself for the sake of another. In the Gospel reading on Valentine’s Day, our second day into Lent, Jesus tells us: “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must take up his cross daily and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it.”

Joseph Ratzinger probably didn’t envision that he would become pope. It is said that after Pope John Paul II’s death, the cardinal and prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith would have preferred to go off to a quiet life of prayer and study. But that’s not what the Holy Spirit had in mind. People who don’t understand the Catholic faith see the papacy solely as a position of power. But it’s more about service, obedience and fidelity. And sometimes suffering.

Pope Benedict has shown us how to follow Christ’s call. He’s shown us Love.

Inspired by this Year of Faith we will be posting columns like this from Susan Szalewski about exploring and/or deepening our faith. Watch for it on Thursdays.