E-Column by Bishop Robert Vasa

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Eros and agape can never be completely separated

BEND -- More than a year ago, Pope Benedict XVI issued his first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est or God Is Love. That letter, issued on Christmas Day 2005, is not necessarily an easy read, and yet I believe it is a document that bears reading. I choose to spend a little time with this document today because I do believe it has something significant to offer to our modern society and to us.

The Holy Father, early in the encyclical, identifies a major problem with love. He writes: "Today the term 'love' has become one of the most frequently used and misused of words, a word to which we attach quite different meanings." He then goes on to discuss two specific forms or types to which this single word "love" might refer. The terms he chooses, or rather draws from Greek and Christian cultures, are eros and agape.

He identifies "eros as a term to indicate 'worldly' love, and agape, referring to love grounded in and shaped by faith. The two notions are often contrasted as 'ascending' love and 'descending' love." In other words, one is a love that seeks to receive and the other a love that is intent on giving.

In a very surprising way, the Holy Father then points out the essential connection between these two forms of love. In our society the differences between the two are readily obvious. They are as distinct as the eros of simply living together and the agape of a faith-filled committed marriage.

The difference is even seen in approach to liturgy or Mass attendance. On the one hand the love of eros inclines one to attend Mass because of what one receives, how it makes one "feel," while the love of agape inclines one to attend Mass out of a self-giving desire to love and serve the Lord.

Eros inclines us to seek our own good, whereas agape inclines us to seek the good of another. Many people respond to the "eros love" of Christmas and Easter but a much smaller number respond to the challenge of the "agape love" required for weekly or even more frequent Mass attendance. Many married couples seek the "eros love" of the marital embrace, but far too many reject the "agape love" of genuine openness to children.

Rather than focus on these disparities between eros and agape the Holy Father writes of their unity: "Yet eros and agape -- ascending love and descending love -- can never be completely separated. The more the two, in their different aspects, find a proper unity in the one reality of love, the more the true nature of love is realized.

"Even if eros is at first mainly covetous and ascending, a fascination for the great promise of happiness, in drawing near to the other, it is less and less concerned with itself, increasingly seeks the happiness of the other, is concerned more and more with the beloved, bestows itself and wants to 'be there for' the other.

"The element of agape thus enters into this love, for otherwise eros is impoverished and even loses its own nature." Now, I do not for a minute pretend to understand the full depth or meaning of these paragraphs, but I do know that each time I read it I am moved to a deeper point of reflection.

As I understand the Holy Father, he is literally placing eros and agape on a continuum that unites rather than seeing them as polar opposites. They are opposites, but they need not necessarily be opposed to one another. Using the same examples I have indicated above, the couple living together and enjoying "eros love," if they are open to God's grace and if they truly love one another, must acknowledge and move more actively toward an "agape love."

This can happen only if there is, at least to some degree, an "agape love" element also present in their relationship. If this relationship is completely self absorbed and godless, then it is effectively separated from a truly good and authentic human love, which of necessity includes both an agape element and an eros element.

The individuals who content themselves with a Christmas and Easter attendance at Mass are certainly not devoid of an "agape love" directed toward God, but their love is not sufficiently imbued with an "agape love" that would incline them to a greater oblative love in regard to God Himself. Even the tendency to seek out a Church or a style of liturgy that appeals to one's personal desires or wants is, to a degree, a manifestation of that love which could be called "eros love."

The falseness of such a divided love is seen when individuals choose not to go to Mass at all, completely reject "agape love," when the style of liturgy is not to their liking.

Married couples who reject the teaching of the Church on the sinfulness of artificial contraception certainly are not devoid of "agape love," but the societal emphasis on "eros love" may lead to the false notion that, within the context of the marital embrace, faithfulness to the Church may diminish "eros love" when, in reality, faithfulness to the Church enhances authentic love by assuring that "eros love" is not selfishly separated from "agape love."

The Holy Father's presentation of the notions of "agape love" and "eros love" culminate in his discussion of the Incarnation of Jesus. He writes: "The real novelty of the New Testament lies not so much in new ideas as in the figure of Christ Himself, who gives flesh and blood to those concepts -- an unprecedented realism."

A part of the Holy Father's point here, or so it seems to me, is that God's perfect "agape love" takes on a bit of the "eros love"; it is concretely and physically expressed in the person of Jesus Christ -- who gives to that love an unprecedented realism. The clear expression of this deeply personal, emotional and unprecedented love is found in the very life of Jesus.

The Holy Father writes: "In the love story recounted by the Bible, He comes towards us, He seeks to win our hearts, all the way to the Last Supper, to the piercing of His heart on the cross, to His appearances after the Resurrection and to the great deeds by which, through the activity of the Apostles, He guided the nascent Church along its path."

The story of that unprecedented love began to be recounted again in the Liturgy of the Church with the First Sunday of Advent and Christmas, in particular.

It continues throughout the entire year. God's "agape love" with its wonderful inclusion of very personal "eros love" calls each of us to move, just a bit, from our limited propensity to indulge "eros-style love" towards a more authentic "agape love" so beautifully expressed and made real by our Redeemer.