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DanishGuy
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Hi.
What does it mean that God is love? What does it mean that God loves us?
What does it mean that God is love? What does it mean that God loves us?
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Vouthon
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To answer your question let me first ask you: What is “love”?
Love is the gift of self to another, without holding anything back. It is complete giving of oneself to someone - whether that be through charitable work, a cuddle, a smile etc.
My understanding of love would be along the lines of what St. John taught in his Sayings of Light and Love:
Blessed Pope John Paul II stated in his apostolic letter Mulieris Dignitatem that “Man – whether man or woman – is the only being among the creatures of the visible world that God the Creator has willed for its own sake; that creature is thus a person. Being a person means striving towards self-realization, which can only be achieved through a sincere gift of self. The model for this interpretation of the person is God himself as Trinity, as a communion of Persons.”
The Christian conception of the Oneness of God is that of a Tri-unity of Persons united by one, common essence and by their mutual self-offering and self-giving of each other, and in Catholic Christianity united by the bond of Love between the Father and the Son that is the Holy Spirit. In this utter abandonment of self-will, the three Persons are One God, one Being, sharing one Unknowable Divine Essence.
Through the universal outpouring and presence of the Holy Spirit, the incarnation of the Son and the mutual indwelling of the Holy Trinity in the souls of the baptized through grace; mankind is offered the gift of participating in this Eternal Love.
True love is the relationship between the three persons, who each selflessly empty themselves for one another. Each of the persons of the Trinity lives completely for the others; each is a complete gift of self to the others. This complete self-giving not only constitutes the individual persons of the Trinity, but also their inseparable oneness. Thus, for Christians the very basis of all reality is the loving communion of persons that is the Holy Trinity.
Pope Benedict XVI once said:
As Pope John Paul II once explained:
Love is the gift of self to another, without holding anything back. It is complete giving of oneself to someone - whether that be through charitable work, a cuddle, a smile etc.
My understanding of love would be along the lines of what St. John taught in his Sayings of Light and Love:
“…All for you and nothing for me…”
Love for me is the gift of self to another. It includes the intent to will the good of another. For it to be genuine love, we must hold nothing back. Everything must be given. We must give a complete gift of ourselves to another person. If we hold “something back” then we create a distance between ourselves and the other person.***- Saint John of the Cross (16th century) ***
Blessed Pope John Paul II stated in his apostolic letter Mulieris Dignitatem that “Man – whether man or woman – is the only being among the creatures of the visible world that God the Creator has willed for its own sake; that creature is thus a person. Being a person means striving towards self-realization, which can only be achieved through a sincere gift of self. The model for this interpretation of the person is God himself as Trinity, as a communion of Persons.”
The Christian conception of the Oneness of God is that of a Tri-unity of Persons united by one, common essence and by their mutual self-offering and self-giving of each other, and in Catholic Christianity united by the bond of Love between the Father and the Son that is the Holy Spirit. In this utter abandonment of self-will, the three Persons are One God, one Being, sharing one Unknowable Divine Essence.
Through the universal outpouring and presence of the Holy Spirit, the incarnation of the Son and the mutual indwelling of the Holy Trinity in the souls of the baptized through grace; mankind is offered the gift of participating in this Eternal Love.
True love is the relationship between the three persons, who each selflessly empty themselves for one another. Each of the persons of the Trinity lives completely for the others; each is a complete gift of self to the others. This complete self-giving not only constitutes the individual persons of the Trinity, but also their inseparable oneness. Thus, for Christians the very basis of all reality is the loving communion of persons that is the Holy Trinity.
Pope Benedict XVI once said:
Our God is not just an individual remote from this universe, who needs intermediary beings to come between Himself and his children. As transcendent and exalted beyond all our imaginings as He is, beyond all thought or human conceptions He emptied Himself and came down as one of us to offer relationship to us."…[The] Three Persons who are one God because the Father is love, the Son is love, the Spirit is love. God is wholly and only love, the purest, infinite and eternal love. He does not live in splendid solitude but rather is an inexhaustible source of life that is ceaselessly given and communicated. To a certain extent we can perceive this by observing both the macro-universe: our earth, the planets, the stars, the galaxies; and the micro-universe: cells, atoms, elementary particles. The “name” of the Blessed Trinity is, in a certain sense, imprinted upon all things because all that exists, down to the last particle, is in relation; in this way we catch a glimpse of God as relationship and ultimately, Creator Love. All things derive from love, aspire to love and move impelled by love, though naturally with varying degrees of awareness and freedom…The strongest proof that we are made in the image of the Trinity is this: love alone makes us happy because we live in a relationship, and we live to love and to be loved. Borrowing an analogy from biology, we could say that imprinted upon his “genome”, the human being bears a profound mark of the Trinity, of God as Love…"
As Pope John Paul II once explained:
"…In the depths of our being, where not even our gaze can penetrate, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, one God in three persons, are present through grace. Far from being a dry intellectual truth, the mystery of the Trinity is the life that dwells in us and sustains us…The mystery of the origins from which all things flow, God appears to us as the One who is the fullness of being and communicates being, as the light that “enlightens every man” (cf. Jn 1: 9), as the Living One and giver of life. He appears to us above all as Love, according to the beautiful definition in the First Letter of John (cf. 1 Jn 4: 8). He is love in his inner life, where the Trinitarian dynamism is the very expression of the eternal love with which the Father begets the Son and both give themselves to each other in the Holy Spirit. He is love in his relationship to the world, since the free decision to make it out of nothing is the fruit of this infinite love which radiates into the sphere of creation. If the eyes of our heart, enlightened by revelation, become pure and penetrating enough, they can by faith encounter this mystery in which everything that exists has its root and foundation…"
J
JRKH
Guest
Vouthon has given a good reply above…except that I would point out that love is not just something that we give to another - it is also something we give to ourselves.Hi.
What does it mean that God is love? What does it mean that God loves us?
The second Great commandment is that we love our neighbor as we love ourselves.(Mt 22:36-40).
So - What does it mean that God is Love…
First let’s recognize that the word used in Scripture is “agape”. God is agape.
The reason for this distinction is that in Greek there are four different terms that can be translated as “love” in English. Agape is the highest form of Love. It is, as Vouthon has
explained, a self sacrificing, deep, brotherly and communal love.
Applied to God it is (IMHO) a statement of all that is good and creative and builds up. It is God’s great happiness and joy and contentment with all that He holds in creation. It is His desire that creation continue and improve and be even more creative, and uplifting and synergistic, and compatible and compassionate and all other things good.
That God loves us…speaks to Jesus coming not to be served but to serve. That God wishes to help us. To be and do all the things that the term “Agape” implies in the human community.
It’s hard to explain…It’s easier to “feel” and to embrace…but it takes time.
Just some thoughts…
Peace
James
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adawgj
Guest
God is Love
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vincent10395
Guest
“What does love look like? It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. That is what love looks like.”
~ St. Augustine of Hippo
~ St. Augustine of Hippo
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landon13
Guest
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI wrote his first apply encyclical and titled it God is Love or Deus caritas est. Look into it. A wonderful presentation about love.
Blessings
Blessings
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