Michael F. Hull
February 28, 2006
Pope Benedict XVI’s Deus caritas est (December 25, 2005) begins with a quote from the First Letter of St. John: “God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” (4:16). Taking his lead from John, the Holy Father identifies love and the divine in order to underscore “the love which God lavishes upon us and which we in turn must share with others” (no. 1).
Drawing attention to God’s love and its ramifications, Pope Benedict explains the relationship between eros and agape. A narrow understanding of love restricts it to eros, thereby reducing man to his body as if he were a commodity. Such a misunderstanding ignores the fact that “love promises infinity, eternity—a reality far greater and totally other than our everyday existence” (no. 5). This begets within us notions such as sacrifice and exclusivity in love, which are expressed in the typical biblical meaning of love: agape (see no. 6). Eros matures into agape without being abolished and without constructing a gulf between the two. We must take care not to identify love solely with agape and thereby deny man’s need to receive the love he is commanded to give (see no. 7). Love, though multifaceted, “is a single reality” (no. 8).
In the Old Testament, a new image of God and love emerges. We find God revealed not only as one, but also as the author of creation. Moreover, we find a God who loves, who chooses Israel in such wise that “his love may certainly be called eros, yet it is also totally agape” (no. 9). For this reason, prophets like Hosea and Ezekiel use erotic imagery to describe the relationship between God and Israel. God’s love, God’s agape, is more than eros because of its forgiving nature—“so great that it turns God against himself, his love against his justice” (no. 10). We find a new image of man that is not found outside biblical revelation. That is, eros is deep-seated in man’s nature and points him toward marriage. A monotheistic God, in a monogamous marriage with his people, “becomes the icon of the relationship between God and his people and vice versa” (no. 11).
In the New Testament, God’s love is made incarnate in Jesus Christ, whose “death on the Cross is the culmination of that turning of God against himself in which he gives himself in order to raise man up and save him” (no. 12). In the Eucharist, the divine condescension is such that he is not only present to us but that he gives himself totally—body, blood, soul, and divinity. Through the Eucharist, we become one body in the Lord vis-à-vis 1 Cor 10:17. And there is more: “Union with Christ is also union with all those to whom he gives himself” (no. 14). This social character extends itself without reservation to all mankind, for “in the least of the brethren we find Jesus himself, and in Jesus we find God” (no. 15).
Pope Benedict wants us to remember that love of God and love of neighbor go hand in hand. God is visible to us in Jesus; God is visible in those who follow the Lord, in the Church and in the sacraments. God is love, and insofar as “he loves us, he makes us see and experience his love” (no. 17). The Holy Father wants us to remember that love of neighbor is most perfectly expressed in Jesus, who unites the love of God (Deut 6:4–5) and neighbor (Lev 19:18) into a single commandment (Matt 22:34–40; Mark 12:29–31; Luke 10:25–28; and cf. no. 1). “Love is ‘divine’ because it comes from God and unites us to God; through this unifying process it makes us a ‘we’ which transcends our divisions and makes us one, until in the end God is ‘all in all’ (1 Cor 15:28)” (no. 18).