Love

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From Love 2.0: Finding Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection (2013)

  Any positive emotion can draw you to smile and carry yourself with a more open posture. And so any positive emotion can be taken by those around you as a sign to relax and connect. When someone feels safe enough to accept that invitation and joins you with his or her own heartfelt good feelings, love’s positivity resonance fires up. The nonverbal gestures unique to these shared micro-moments of love eluded scientists for decades. In part, this reflected early methodological choices, like overreliance on posed expressions and still photographs. More recently, scientists have taken a more holistic and dynamic look at the spontaneous nonverbal expressions that flow between two people engaged in ordinary conversations infused with mutual positivity. Widening their approach has enabled scientists to uncover the unique nonverbal fingerprint of love. Love, this new evidence shows, is characterized by four distinct nonverbal cues. The first cue, not surprisingly, is how often you and the other person each smile at each other, in the genuine, eye-crinkling manner. A second cue is the frequency with which you each use open and friendly hand gestures to refer to each other, like your outstretched palm. (Hostile hand gestures, like pointing or finger-wagging, are by definition excluded from this category of gestures.) A third cue is how often you each lean in toward each other, literally bringing your hearts closer together. The fourth cue is how often you each nod your head, a sign that you affirm and accept each other. Taken together, these four nonverbal cues—smiles, gestures, leans, and nods—both emanate from a person’s inner experiences of love and are read by others as love. Love, displayed in this way, also matters. It has force. It forecasts not only the social support people feel in their relationships but also how they deliver direct criticism, which (as I describe in a later section) has been found to predict the long-term stability of loving relationships. These four nonverbal gestures are thus a dependable and consequential sign of love. Other nonverbal gestures can also reveal love—literally if the timing is right. For instance, when people come together and connect, their actions often come into sync, so that their hand movements and facial expressions mirror each other to a certain degree. Spontaneously synchronized gestures like these can make two separate individuals come to look like one well-orchestrated unit. This phenomenon extends beyond pairs: Just as birds migrate in flocks and fish swim in schools, large groups of people at times spontaneously move in synchronized ways. You can begin to appreciate how a football game or a concert can trigger positivity resonance on a grand scale. Through intense synchronized cheers, chants, marches, or dance, these and other ways of keeping in time together forge deep feelings of group solidarity—even throughout an entire arena.

• From The History of Sexuality, Vol. 3: The Care of the Self (1984)

  In many other texts as well, one sees the relation between husband and wife detach itself from matrimonial functions, from the status-determined authority of the husband and the reasonable government of the household, and take on the character of a singular relation having its own force, its own difficulties, obligations, benefits, and pleasures. One could cite other letters of Pliny and point to other indications of this in Lucian or Tacitus. One could also refer to the conjugal love poetry that is exemplified in Statius. There the state of marriage appears as the merging of two destinies in an undying passion wherein the husband recognizes his emotional bondage: “For it is you—you, whom Venus of her grace united to me in the springtime of my days, and in old age keeps mine; you, who while I yet roved in youth nor knew nothing of love did transfix my heart. You it is whose rein in willing submission [libens et docilis] I obeyed, and yet press the bit once put within my mouth, without ever thought of change.… This land bore me for you [creavit me tibi], and bound me to you in partnership forever.”16 Of course it is not in texts like these that one should look for a representation of what matrimonial life may have really been like in the period of the Empire. The sincerity they display does not have the value of evidence. They are texts that go out of their way to proclaim an ideal of conjugality. They should be taken not as the reflection of a situation, but as the formulation of an exigency, and it is precisely on this account that they form part of reality. They show that marriage was interrogated as a mode of life whose value was not exclusively, nor perhaps even essentially, linked to the functioning of the oikos, but rather to a mode of relation between two partners. They also show that, in this linkage, the man had to regulate his conduct, not simply by virtue of status, privileges, and domestic functions, but also by virtue of a “relational role” with regard to his wife. Finally, they show not only that this role was a governmental function of training, education, and guidance, but that it was involved in a complex interplay of affective reciprocity and reciprocal dependence. Now, while it is true that moral reflection on proper conduct in marriage had long sought its principles in an analysis of the “household” and its intrinsic necessities, one sees how a new type of problem emerged, where it was a matter of defining the way in which the husband would be able to form himself as an ethical subject within the relation of conjugality.

• From Love 2.0: Finding Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection (2013)

  What is love, exactly? What’s hidden beneath love’s surface? What does love create? How do you unlock more opportunities for it? The new science of love tackles all of these questions and upgrades our vision of love. In chapter 2, I examine your body’s definition of love in detail and describe love’s necessary preconditions. In chapter 3, I reveal the hidden biological underpinnings of love, and you’ll come away with an even deeper appreciation for what love means for your health. In chapter 4, I describe the vast array of benefits that love brings to you. Part II of this book is all about making changes. You’ve long admired people skilled at making genuine, heartfelt connections. They seem so perceptive and nimble, so resilient and generous. You’ve long imagined that being a “grown up” would bestow you with such perspective and grace. Yet age, measured as time since birth, provides no guarantees for maturity or wisdom. In chapters 5 through 9, I offer you explicit guidance on how to seed love more often and more effectively, love for yourself and love for others, through thick and thin, in sickness and in health. You’ll come away having learned that love need not remain an unpredictable and elusive state. With practice, you’ll find you can generate love anytime you wish. Love will become a renewable resource that you can tap to fuel your own well-being, and the well-being of all those within your radius. Love is our supreme emotion: Its presence or absence in our lives influences everything we feel, think, do, and become. It’s that recurrent state that ties you in—your body and brain alike—to the social fabric, to the bodies and brains of those in your midst. When you experience love—true heart/mind/soul-expanding love—you not only become better able to see the larger tapestry of life and better able to breathe life into the connections that matter to you, but you also set yourself on a pathway that leads to more health, happiness, and wisdom. CHAPTER 2 What Love Is LOVE IS BRIEF, BUT FREQUENTLY RECURRING. —François de La Rochefoucauld As you check out of the grocery store, you share a laugh with the cashier about the face you see peering up at you from the uncommonly gnarly tomato in your basket. On your way to pick up your mail, you happen upon a neighbor you’ve not seen in a while and pause to chat. Within minutes you find yourselves swapping lively stories with each other about the fascinations you share. At work, you and your teammates celebrate a shared triumph with hugs and high fives. On your morning jog, you smile and nod to greet fellow runners and silently wish them a good day. You share a long embrace with a family member after a trip that has kept you apart for too many days. What Love Is

• From How to Read the Bible and Still Be a Christian (2015)

  Paul must, paradoxically, command Philemon to free Onesimus freely. Philemon must do it because he believes in it (faith with works) and not just because Paul commands it (works without faith): “I preferred to do nothing without your consent, in order that your good deed might be voluntary and not something forced” (v. 14). It is clear, then, that the baptismal commitment of “no longer slave or free” is neither hyperbole nor hypocrisy but program and platform. It means that Christians cannot own Christians. Hierarchy: “There Is No Longer Jew or Greek”IT IS IMPORTANT THAT the phrase “there is no longer Jew or Greek” (Gal. 3:28) never be quoted except within its Christian frame. It does not deny the ongoing existence of Judaism by rhetorical holocaust or supersessionist delusion. It states that whether you come into the Christian community from Jewish monotheism or Greco-Roman polytheism, you are now equal in Christ. There is no superiority of either over the other. Jews and Greeks now “drink of one Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:13). This touches on the oft-made accusation that Paul was anti-Semitic and thereby betrayed both Jesus and Judaism. Paul believed, of course, that Jesus was the Messiah/Christ and wanted all Jews to become Messianic/Christian Jews, but that made him, from his point of view, pro-Semitic, not anti-Semitic. First, Paul insisted again and again that he himself was a devout Jew and, indeed, a fervent Pharisee. He describes himself as “circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee . . . as to righteousness under the law, blameless” (Phil. 3:5–6). And hear him again, in this medley, especially with its climactic statement of his love for his own people: I advanced in Judaism beyond many among my people of the same age, for I was far more zealous for the traditions of my ancestors. (Gal. 1:14) Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they descendants of Abraham? So am I. (2 Cor. 11:22) I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. (Rom. 11:1) I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience confirms it by the Holy Spirit—I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own people, my kindred according to the flesh. They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh, comes the Messiah, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Whether hope is a cause of love?Objection 1: It would seem that hope is not a cause of love. Because, according to Augustine (De Civ. Dei xiv, 7,9), love is the first of the soul’s emotions. But hope is an emotion of the soul. Therefore love precedes hope, and consequently hope does not cause love. Objection 2: Further, desire precedes hope. But desire is caused by love, as stated above ([1359]Q[25], A[2]). Therefore hope, too, follows love, and consequently is not its cause. Objection 3: Further, hope causes pleasure, as stated above ([1360]Q[32], A[3]). But pleasure is only of the good that is loved. Therefore love precedes hope. On the contrary, The gloss commenting on Mat. 1:2, “Abraham begot Isaac, and Isaac begot Jacob,” says, i.e. “faith begets hope, and hope begets charity.” But charity is love. Therefore love is caused by hope. I answer that, Hope can regard two things. For it regards as its object, the good which one hopes for. But since the good we hope for is something difficult but possible to obtain; and since it happens sometimes that what is difficult becomes possible to us, not through ourselves but through others; hence it is that hope regards also that by which something becomes possible to us. In so far, then, as hope regards the good we hope to get, it is caused by love: since we do not hope save for that which we desire and love. But in so far as hope regards one through whom something becomes possible to us, love is caused by hope, and not vice versa. Because by the very fact that we hope that good will accrue to us through someone, we are moved towards him as to our own good; and thus we begin to love him. Whereas from the fact that we love someone we do not hope in him, except accidentally, that is, in so far as we think that he returns our love. Wherefore the fact of being loved by another makes us hope in him; but our love for him is caused by the hope we have in him. Wherefore the Replies to the Objections are evident. Whether hope is a help or a hindrance to action?Objection 1: It would seem that hope is not a help but a hindrance to action. Because hope implies security. But security begets negligence which hinders action. Therefore hope is a hindrance to action. Objection 2: Further, sorrow hinders action, as stated above ([1361]Q[37], A[3]). But hope sometimes causes sorrow: for it is written (Prov. 13:12): “Hope that is deferred afflicteth the soul.” Therefore hope hinders action. Objection 3: Further, despair is contrary to hope, as stated above [1362](A[4]). But despair, especially in matters of war, conduces to action; for it is written (2 Kings 2:26), that “it is dangerous to drive people to despair.” Therefore hope has a contrary effect, namely, by hindering action.

• From Little Women (1868)

  As he couldn't, Jo wiped his eyes for him, and said, laughing, as she took away a bundle or two... "I may be strong-minded, but no one can say I'm out of my sphere now, for woman's special mission is supposed to be drying tears and bearing burdens. I'm to carry my share, Friedrich, and help to earn the home. Make up your mind to that, or I'll never go," she added resolutely, as he tried to reclaim his load. "We shall see. Haf you patience to wait a long time, Jo? I must go away and do my work alone. I must help my boys first, because, even for you, I may not break my word to Minna. Can you forgif that, and be happy while we hope and wait?" "Yes, I know I can, for we love one another, and that makes all the rest easy to bear. I have my duty, also, and my work. I couldn't enjoy myself if I neglected them even for you, so there's no need of hurry or impatience. You can do your part out West, I can do mine here, and both be happy hoping for the best, and leaving the future to be as God wills." "Ah! Thou gifest me such hope and courage, and I haf nothing to gif back but a full heart and these empty hands," cried the Professor, quite overcome. Jo never, never would learn to be proper, for when he said that as they stood upon the steps, she just put both hands into his, whispering tenderly, "Not empty now," and stooping down, kissed her Friedrich under the umbrella. It was dreadful, but she would have done it if the flock of draggle-tailed sparrows on the hedge had been human beings, for she was very far gone indeed, and quite regardless of everything but her own happiness. Though it came in such a very simple guise, that was the crowning moment of both their lives, when, turning from the night and storm and loneliness to the household light and warmth and peace waiting to receive them, with a glad "Welcome home!" Jo led her lover in, and shut the door. CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN HARVEST TIME For a year Jo and her Professor worked and waited, hoped and loved, met occasionally, and wrote such voluminous letters that the rise in the price of paper was accounted for, Laurie said. The second year began rather soberly, for their prospects did not brighten, and Aunt March died suddenly.

• From In Search of Paul: How Jesus's Apostle Opposed Rome's Empire with God's Kingdom (2005)

  That, of course, is not exactly how Paul used the metaphor. His point is, “There are many members, yet one body” (12:20) and all depend on all. But the twin frames of the body image in 12:12–13 and 12:27 are of primary importance for Paul: For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. That means, minimally, that the Christian assembly is like a human body, but one that belongs to Christ. But it also means, maximally, that there is an organic fusion between Christ and the Christian community insofar as both are transfused with the same Holy Spirit. Diversity and Hierarchy Some Corinthians must have set up a hierarchy of gifts and services with “tongues” or “speaking in tongues,” that is, the ecstatic utterance of non-speech, as the greatest of them all and those who possessed it as the most Spirit-filled Christians in the assemblies. In English the term for that spiritual gift is glossolalia, from the Greek words for tongue (glossa) and speaking (lalein), and Paul refers to such utterances over a dozen times from 12:10 to 14:39. But he not only opposes any primacy of glossolalia; he replaces that hierarchy with a completely different one. First, there is the well-known rhapsody on “the more excellent way” (12:31), which begins, “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love (agap [image file=image_rsrc2XV.jpg] ), I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal” (13:1), continues with the qualities of love (13:4–12), and concludes, “Now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love” (13:13). That section in 1 Corinthians 13 and its wider ambience in 1 Corinthians 12–14 makes it clear that “to love” means “to share” and that all other Spirit gifts or Spirit functions are worthless unless received, used, and shared with all for the common good. Second, and on that basic principle, prophets take precedence over glos-solalists because “those who prophesy speak to other people for their up-building and encouragement and consolation,” while “those who speak in a tongue build up themselves, but those who prophesy build up the church” (14:3–4). Once again, the principle of common good is clear: “Since you are eager for spiritual gifts, strive to excel in them for building up the church” (14:12). Third, glossolalia speaks “to God,” but does not speak to the human mind, not of believers and not of nonbelievers:

• From Love 2.0: Finding Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection (2013)

  I want to emphasize, though, that love isn’t simply one of the many positive emotions that sweep through you from time to time. It’s bigger than joy, amusement, gratitude, or hope. It has special status. I call it our supreme emotion. First, that’s because any of the other positive emotions—joy, amusement, gratitude, hope, and so on—can be transformed into an instance of love when felt in close connection with another. Yet casting love as shared positive emotion doesn’t go nearly far enough. Second, whereas all positive emotions provide benefits—each, after all, broadens your mind-set and builds your resourcefulness—the benefits of love run far deeper, perhaps exponentially so. Love is our supreme emotion that makes us come most fully alive and feel most fully human. It is perhaps the most essential emotional experience for thriving and health. My approach to love is also different because it crosses emotions science with relationship science. From relationship science, I adopt the idea that love draws you out of your cocoon of self-absorption to attune to others. Love allows you to really see another person, holistically, with care, concern, and compassion. Within each moment of loving connection, you become sincerely invested in this other person’s well-being, simply for his or her own sake. And the feeling is mutual. You come to recognize that, in this loving moment, this other person is also sincerely invested in your well-being; that he or she truly cares for you. Relationship scientists cast this sense of mutual care as an abiding attribute of intimate relationships. By contrast, I see mutual care as a momentary state that rises and falls in step with changes in context and emotion.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  In the second way, however, we love those more who have received benefactions from us, as the Philosopher proves (Ethic. ix, 7) by four arguments. First because the recipient of benefactions is the handiwork of the benefactor, so that we are wont to say of a man: “He was made by so and so.” Now it is natural to a man to love his own work (thus it is to be observed that poets love their own poems): and the reason is that we love “to be” and “to live,” and these are made manifest in our “action.” Secondly, because we all naturally love that in which we see our own good. Now it is true that the benefactor has some good of his in the recipient of his benefaction, and the recipient some good in the benefactor; but the benefactor sees his virtuous good in the recipient, while the recipient sees his useful good in the benefactor. Now it gives more pleasure to see one’s virtuous good than one’s useful good, both because it is more enduring for usefulness quickly flits by, and the pleasure of calling a thing to mind is not like the pleasure of having it present and because it is more pleasant to recall virtuous goods than the profit we have derived from others. Thirdly, because is it the lover’s part to act, since he wills and works the good of the beloved, while the beloved takes a passive part in receiving good, so that to love surpasses being loved, for which reason the greater love is on the part of the benefactor. Fourthly because it is more difficult to give than to receive favors: and we are most fond of things which have cost us most trouble, while we almost despise what comes easy to us. Reply to Objection 1: It is some thing in the benefactor that incites the recipient to love him: whereas the benefactor loves the recipient, not through being incited by him, but through being moved thereto of his own accord: and what we do of our own accord surpasses what we do through another. Reply to Objection 2: The love of the beneficiary for the benefactor is more of a duty, wherefore the contrary is the greater sin. On the other hand, the love of the benefactor for the beneficiary is more spontaneous, wherefore it is quicker to act. Reply to Objection 3: God also loves us more than we love Him, and parents love their children more than these love them. Yet it does not follow that we love all who have received good from us, more than any of our benefactors. For we prefer such benefactors as God and our parents, from whom we have received the greatest favors, to those on whom we have bestowed lesser benefits.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Reply to Objection 3: The “good” has, more than the “difficult,” to do with the reason of merit and virtue. Therefore it does not follow that whatever is more difficult is more meritorious, but only what is more difficult, and at the same time better. OF JOY (FOUR ARTICLES)WE must now consider the effects which result from the principal act of charity which is love, and (1) the interior effects, (2) the exterior effects. As to the first, three things have to be considered: (1) Joy, (2) Peace, (3) Mercy. Under the first head there are four points of inquiry: (1) Whether joy is an effect of charity? (2) Whether this kind of joy is compatible with sorrow? (3) Whether this joy can be full? (4) Whether it is a virtue? Whether joy is effected in us by charity?Objection 1: It would seem that joy is not effected in us by charity. For the absence of what we love causes sorrow rather than joy. But God, Whom we love by charity, is absent from us, so long as we are in this state of life, since “while we are in the body, we are absent from the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:6). Therefore charity causes sorrow in us rather than joy. Objection 2: Further, it is chiefly through charity that we merit happiness. Now mourning, which pertains to sorrow, is reckoned among those things whereby we merit happiness, according to Mat. 5:5: “Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.” Therefore sorrow, rather than joy, is an effect of charity. Objection 3: Further, charity is a virtue distinct from hope, as shown above ([2580]Q[17], A[6]). Now joy is the effect of hope, according to Rom. 12:12: “Rejoicing in hope.” Therefore it is not the effect of charity. On the contrary, It is written (Rom. 5:5): “The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, Who is given to us.” But joy is caused in us by the Holy Ghost according to Rom. 14:17: “The kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but justice and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.” Therefore charity is a cause of joy.

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  Next door to us lived a doctor’s widow with two daughters, the eldest a medium-sized girl with large head and good grey eyes, hardly to be called pretty though all girls were pretty enough to excite me for the next ten years or more. This eldest girl was called Molly—a pet name for Maria. Her sister Kathleen was far more attractive physically: she was rather tall and slight, with a lithe grace of figure that was intensely provocative. Yet though I noted all Kathleen’s feline witchery, I fell prone for Molly. She seemed to me both intelligent and witty: she had read widely too and knew both French and German; she was as far above all the American girls I had met in knowledge of books and art as she was inferior to the best of them in bodily beauty. For the first time my mind was excited and interested and I thought I was in love and one late afternoon or early evening on Castle Hill I told her I loved her and we became engaged. Oh, the sweet folly of it all! When she asked me how we should live, what I intended to do, I had no answer ready save the perfect self-confidence of the man who had already proved himself in the struggle of life. Fortunately for me, that didn’t seem very convincing to her: she admitted that she was three years older than I was and if she had said four, she would have been nearer the truth, and she was quite certain I would not find it so easy to win in England as in America: she underrated both my brains and my strength of will. She confided to me that she had a hundred a year of her own: but that, of course, was wholly inadequate. So though she kissed me freely and allowed me a score of little privacies, she was resolved not to give herself completely. Her distrust of my ability and her delightfully piquant reserve heightened my passion and once I won her consent to an immediate marriage. At her best Molly was astonishingly intelligent and frank. One night alone together in our sitting-room which my father and sister left to us, I tried my best to get her to give herself to me. But she shook her head: “it would not be right, dear, till we are married”, she persisted. “Suppose we were on a desert island”, I said, “and no marriage possible?” “My darling!” she said kissing me on the mouth and laughing aloud, “don’t you know, I should yield then without your urging: you dear! I want you, Sir, perhaps more than you want me.” But she wore closed drawers and I didn’t know how to unbutton them at the sides and though she grew intensely and quickly excited, I could not break down the final barrier. In any case, before I could win, Fate used her shears decisively.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  As to the order to be observed among our neighbors, a man will simply love those who are better, according to the love of charity. Because the entire life of the blessed consists in directing their minds to God, wherefore the entire ordering of their love will be ruled with respect to God, so that each one will love more and reckon to be nearer to himself those who are nearer to God. For then one man will no longer succor another, as he needs to in the present life, wherein each man has to succor those who are closely connected with him rather than those who are not, no matter what be the nature of their distress: hence it is that in this life, a man, by the inclination of charity, loves more those who are more closely united to him, for he is under a greater obligation to bestow on them the effect of charity. It will however be possible in heaven for a man to love in several ways one who is connected with him, since the causes of virtuous love will not be banished from the mind of the blessed. Yet all these reasons are incomparably surpassed by that which is taken from nighness to God. Reply to Objection 1: This argument should be granted as to those who are connected together; but as regards man himself, he ought to love himself so much the more than others, as his charity is more perfect, since perfect entire reason of his love, for God is man’s charity directs man to God perfectly, and this belongs to love of oneself, as stated above. Reply to Objection 2: This argument considers the order of charity in respect of the degree of good one wills the person one loves. Reply to Objection 3: God will be to each one the entire reason of his love, for God is man’s entire good. For if we make the impossible supposition that God were not man’s good, He would not be man’s reason for loving. Hence it is that in the order of love man should love himself more than all else after God. OF THE PRINCIPLE ACT OF CHARITY, WHICH IS TO LOVE (EIGHT ARTICLES)We must now consider the act of charity, and (1) the principal act of charity, which is to love, (2) the other acts or effects which follow from that act. Under the first head there are eight points of inquiry: (1) Which is the more proper to charity, to love or to be loved? (2) Whether to love considered as an act of charity is the same as goodwill? (3) Whether God should be loved for His own sake? (4) Whether God can be loved immediately in this life? (5) Whether God can be loved wholly? (6) Whether the love of God is according to measure?

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  But because any announcement put forth requires confirmation before it can be received,—unless indeed it is self-evident, and the truths of faith are not evident to human reason,—there was need of something to confirm the announcements of the preachers of the faith. But, inasmuch as they transcend reason, they could not be confirmed by any demonstrative process of reasoning from first principles. The means therefore to show that the announcements of these preachers came from God was the evidence of works done by them such as none other than God could do, healing the sick, and other miracles. Hence the Lord, sending his disciples to preach, said: Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out devils (Matt. x, 8); and, They going forth preached everywhere, the Lord working withal, and confirming their words by the signs that followed. In the aforesaid effects of grace we observe a certain difference. Though the name of grace’ applies to them all, inasmuch as they are given gratuitously’ without any preceding merit, nevertheless the working of love alone has a further claim to the name of grace,’ as constituting the subject in the state of grace,’ or in the good graces of God’ (gratum Deo facit): for it is said: I love them that love me (Prov. viii, 17). Hence faith and hope and other means to the last end may be in sinners, who are not in the grace of God: love alone is the proper gift of the just, because he who abideth in charity abideth in God, and God in him (1 John iv, 16). There is another difference to be observed in these workings of grace, and it is this, that some of them are necessary for a whole lifetime, as believing, hoping, loving, and obeying the commandments of God, without which things salvation is impossible; and for these effects there must be in man certain habitual perfections, that he may be able to act according to them as occasion requires. Other effects of grace are necessary, not for a whole lifetime, but at certain times and places, as working of miracles, or foretelling of future events. To these effects habitual perfections are not given, but certain impressions are made by God, which cease when the act ceases, and have to be repeated when the act is repeated. Thus prophets in every revelation are illumined with a new light; and in every working of miracles there must be a fresh putting into operation of divine power. CHAPTER CLVI

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  (7) Which is the better, to love one’s friend, or one’s enemy? (8) Which is the better, to love God, or one’s neighbor? Whether to be loved is more proper to charity than to love?Objection 1: It would seem that it is more proper to charity to be loved than to love. For the better charity is to be found in those who are themselves better. But those who are better should be more loved. Therefore to be loved is more proper to charity. Objection 2: Further, that which is to be found in more subjects seems to be more in keeping with nature, and, for that reason, better. Now, as the Philosopher says (Ethic. viii, 8), “many would rather be loved than love, and lovers of flattery always abound.” Therefore it is better to be loved than to love, and consequently it is more in keeping with charity. Objection 3: Further, “the cause of anything being such is yet more so.” Now men love because they are loved, for Augustine says (De Catech. Rud. iv) that “nothing incites another more to love you than that you love him first.” Therefore charity consists in being loved rather than in loving. On the contrary, The Philosopher says (Ethic. viii, 8) that friendship consists in loving rather than in being loved. Now charity is a kind of friendship. Therefore it consists in loving rather than in being loved. I answer that, To love belongs to charity as charity. For, since charity is a virtue, by its very essence it has an inclination to its proper act. Now to be loved is not the act of the charity of the person loved; for this act is to love: and to be loved is competent to him as coming under the common notion of good, in so far as another tends towards his good by an act of charity. Hence it is clear that to love is more proper to charity than to be loved: for that which befits a thing by reason of itself and its essence is more competent to it than that which is befitting to it by reason of something else. This can be exemplified in two ways. First, in the fact that friends are more commended for loving than for being loved, indeed, if they be loved and yet love not, they are blamed. Secondly, because a mother, whose love is the greatest, seeks rather to love than to be loved: for “some women,” as the Philosopher observes (Ethic. viii, 8) “entrust their children to a nurse; they do love them indeed, yet seek not to be loved in return, if they happen not to be loved.”

• From Momma and the Meaning of Life (1999)

  I loved my Aunt Hannah, my father’s sister: her sweetness, her unceasing warmth, her grilled hot dogs wrapped in crisp bologna slices, her incomparable strudel (its recipe forever lost to me, as her son will not send it to me—but that’s another story). Most of all I loved Hannah on Sundays. On that day her delicatessen near the Washington, D.C., Navy Yard was closed, and she put free games on the pinball machine and let me play for hours. She never objected to my putting small wads of paper under the front legs of the machine to slow the pinballs’ descent so I could run up higher scores. My adoration of Hannah sent my momma into a frenzy of spiteful attacks on her sister-in-law. Momma had her Hannah litany: Hannah’s poverty, her aversion to working in the store, her poor business sense, her cloddish husband, her lack of pride and ready acceptance of all hand-me-downs. Momma’s speech was abominable, her English heavily accented and larded with Yiddish terms. She never came to my school for parents’ day or for PTA meetings. Thank God! I cringed at the thought of introducing my friends to her. I fought with Momma, defied her, screamed at her, avoided her, and, finally, in my midadolescence, stopped speaking to her altogether. The great puzzle of my childhood was, How does Daddy put up with her? I remember wonderful moments on Sunday mornings when he and I played chess and he gaily sang along with records of Russian or Jewish music, his head swaying in time to the melody. Sooner or later the morning air was shattered by Momma’s voice screeching from upstairs, “Gevalt, Gevalt, enough! Vay iz mir, enough music, enough noise!” Without a word my father would rise, turn off the phonograph, and resume our chess game in silence. How many times I prayed, Please, Dad, please, just this once, punch her out! So why wave? And why ask, at the very end of my life, “How’d I do, Momma?” Can it be—and the possibility staggers me—that I have been conducting my entire life with this lamentable woman as my primary audience? All my life I have sought to escape, to climb away from my past—the shtetl, the steerage, the ghetto, the tallis, the chanting, the black gabardine, the grocery store. All my life I have stretched for liberation and growth. Can it be that I have escaped neither my past nor my mother? Those friends who have had lovely, gracious, supportive mothers—how I envy them. And how odd that they are not bound to their mothers, neither phoning, visiting, dreaming, nor even thinking about them frequently. Whereas I have to purge my mother from my mind many times a day and even now, ten years after her death, often reflexively reach for a phone to call her.

• From The Case for God (2009)

  The dogma of Trinity also symbolized the kenosis that Christians glimpsed at the heart of being. Each persona of the Trinity defers to the others; none is sufficient unto itself. It is, perhaps, easier to express this in a pictorial image. In Orthodox Christianity, the icon has a dogmatic function that expresses the inner truth of a doctrine, and a great icon can have the same status as scripture.44 One of the most famous icons of all time is The Old Testament Trinity by the fifteenth-century Russian painter Alexander Rublev, which has become an archetypal image of the divine in the Orthodox world.45 It is based on the story of Abraham and the three strangers, whom Rublev depicts as angels, messengers of the unknowable God. Each represents one of the Trinitarian “persons;” they look interchangeable and can be identified only by their symbolically colored garments and the emblem behind each one. Abraham’s table has become an altar, and the elaborate meal he prepared has been reduced to the Eucharistic cup. The three angels sit in a circle, emblem of perfection and infinity, and the viewer is positioned on the empty side of the table. Immediately Rublev suggests that Christians can experience the truth of the Trinity in the Eucharistic liturgy, in communion with God and one another, and—recalling the Genesis story—in a life of compassion. The central angel representing the Son immediately attracts our attention, yet he does not return our gaze but looks toward the Father, the angel on his right. Instead of returning his regard, the Father directs his attention to the figure at the right of the painting, whose gaze is directed within. We are thus drawn into the perpetual circling motion described by Gregory of Nazianzus. This is not an overbearing deity, demanding exclusive loyalty and total attention to himself. We meet none of the prosopoi head-on; each refers us to the other in eternal personal dispossession.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Reply to Objection 1: A better man, through being better, is more lovable; but through having more perfect charity, loves more. He loves more, however, in proportion to the person he loves. For a better man does not love that which is beneath him less than it ought to be loved: whereas he who is less good fails to love one who is better, as much as he ought to be loved. Reply to Objection 2: As the Philosopher says (Ethic. viii, 8), “men wish to be loved in as much as they wish to be honored.” For just as honor is bestowed on a man in order to bear witness to the good which is in him, so by being loved a man is shown to have some good, since good alone is lovable. Accordingly men seek to be loved and to be honored, for the sake of something else, viz. to make known the good which is in the person loved. On the other hand, those who have charity seek to love for the sake of loving, as though this were itself the good of charity, even as the act of any virtue is that virtue’s good. Hence it is more proper to charity to wish to love than to wish to be loved. Reply to Objection 3: Some love on account of being loved, not so that to be loved is the end of their loving, but because it is a kind of way leading a man to love. Whether to love considered as an act of charity is the same as goodwill?Objection 1: It would seem that to love, considered as an act of charity, is nothing else than goodwill. For the Philosopher says (Rhet. ii, 4) that “to love is to wish a person well”; and this is goodwill. Therefore the act of charity is nothing but goodwill. Objection 2: Further, the act belongs to the same subject as the habit. Now the habit of charity is in the power of the will, as stated above ([2571]Q[24], A[1]). Therefore the act of charity is also an act of the will. But it tends to good only, and this is goodwill. Therefore the act of charity is nothing else than goodwill. Objection 3: Further, the Philosopher reckons five things pertaining to friendship (Ethic. ix, 4), the first of which is that a man should wish his friend well; the second, that he should wish him to be and to live; the third, that he should take pleasure in his company; the fourth, that he should make choice of the same things; the fifth, that he should grieve and rejoice with him. Now the first two pertain to goodwill. Therefore goodwill is the first act of charity.

• From Momma and the Meaning of Life (1999)

  A propitious opportunity appeared when the National Cancer Institute sent out a call for applications for social-behavioral breast cancer research. I applied successfully for a grant enabling me to evaluate the effectiveness of my therapeutic approach to the terminal breast cancer patient. It was a simple, straightforward project. I felt confident that my treatment approach improved the quality of life of the terminally ill patient and that I had only to develop an evaluation component—the administration of questionnaires before members entered the group and at regular intervals thereafter. Notice that I now begin to make more use of the first-person pronoun: “I decided . . . I applied . . . my treatment approach.” As I look back and sift through the ashes of my relationship with Paula, I suspect that these first-person pronouns foreshadowed the corruption of our love. But as I lived through this period, I was unaware of even the most subtle spoilage. I remember only that Paula filled me with light and that I was her rock, the haven for which she had searched before we two were lucky enough to have found each another. Of one thing I am certain: it was shortly after the funded research officially began that things started to go wrong. First small hairline cracks, then crevices began to appear in our relationship. Perhaps the first clear sign that something was amiss was Paula’s telling me one day that she felt exploited by the research project. I thought this a curious remark because I had tried in every way possible to make her role in the project just what she requested: she interviewed all the new candidates for the groups, all women with metastatic breast cancer, and helped in the construction of the evaluation questionnaires. Furthermore, I had made sure she was well paid—far more than the average research assistant and more than she had requested. A few weeks later, in a disturbing conversation, she told me that she felt overworked and yearned for more time for herself. I felt sympathetic and tried to offer suggestions for reducing her frenetic pace. Shortly afterward I submitted to the National Cancer Institute my written report of the first stage of the research. Though I made sure to put Paula’s name first among the list of the research associates, I soon heard a rumor that she was dissatisfied about the amount of credit she had received. I made the mistake of paying this rumor little heed: it seemed uncharacteristic of Paula. A short time later I introduced Dr. Kingsley into one of the groups as a cotherapist—a young female psychologist who, though inexperienced in working with cancer patients, was extraordinarily intelligent, well intentioned, and dedicated. Soon Paula sought me out. “That woman,” she scolded, “is the coldest, most ungiving person I’ve ever encountered. Not in a thousand years will she be able to help any of the patients.”

• From Love 2.0: Finding Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection (2013)

  Moments of seemingly shared positivity abound. You, and those in your midst, can be infused with one form of positivity or another, yet not be truly connected. You and everyone else in the movie theater, for instance, share the positivity emanating from the big screen; you and the person next to you in the lecture hall are fascinated by the same set of new ideas; you and your family members take in the same television comedy. Yet absent eye contact, touch, laughter, or another form of behavioral synchrony, these moments are akin to what developmental psychologists call parallel play. They no doubt feel great and their positivity confers broaden-and-build benefits both to you and to others, independently. But if they are not (yet) directly and interpersonally shared experiences, they do not resonate or reverberate, and so they are not (yet) instances of love. The key to love is to add some form of physical connection. To be clear, the sensory and temporal connections you establish with others through eye contact, touch, conversation, or other forms of behavioral synchrony are not, in and of themselves, love. Even holding hands, after all, can become a loveless habit. Yet in the right contexts, these gestures become springboards for love. The right contexts are those infused with the emotional presence of positivity. Imagine that instead of me sitting alone at my home office computer searching for words in July 2011 and you sitting (am I right?) who knows where reading these words some years later, that you and I are sitting together at your local coffee shop talking these ideas over. Turns out, you’ve got a boatload of great questions. It doesn’t take long for our shared enthusiasm for what the latest science says about human nature and human potential to take hold of us. Although I’m fairly low-key by nature, this sort of conversation can get me pretty animated. My gestures and smiles convey not only my enthusiasm for the ideas but also my appreciation for your thoughtful questions and examples. I’m attuned to you, sympathetic to your input, and responding to all the subtle cues that reveal how effectively we’re communicating. From my perspective, your smiles, nods, and other gestures of your own positivity and attunement don’t just exist “out there” in you. When we meet each other’s gaze, they also come to exist, in a very real way, inside me. Within milliseconds my brain and body begin to buzz with your enthusiasm and appreciation, and your attunement to me. The more this happens, the more I come to feel the same way as you, both enthused and appreciative, responsive and sympathetic. Soon enough these feelings surface on my face and emanate through my voice and gestures. As our eyes continue to meet, a parallel simulation process flows forth within you, as the dynamics unfolding within your brain and body begin to pattern mine. A back-and-forth reverberation stretches out between us.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  On the contrary, The Philosopher says (Ethic. ix, 5) that “goodwill is neither friendship nor love, but the beginning of friendship.” Now charity is friendship, as stated above ([2572]Q[23], A[1]). Therefore goodwill is not the same as to love considered as an act of charity. I answer that, Goodwill properly speaking is that act of the will whereby we wish well to another. Now this act of the will differs from actual love, considered not only as being in the sensitive appetite but also as being in the intellective appetite or will. For the love which is in the sensitive appetite is a passion. Now every passion seeks its object with a certain eagerness. And the passion of love is not aroused suddenly, but is born of an earnest consideration of the object loved; wherefore the Philosopher, showing the difference between goodwill and the love which is a passion, says (Ethic. ix, 5) that goodwill does not imply impetuosity or desire, that is to say, has not an eager inclination, because it is by the sole judgment of his reason that one man wishes another well. Again such like love arises from previous acquaintance, whereas goodwill sometimes arises suddenly, as happens to us if we look on at a boxing-match, and we wish one of the boxers to win. But the love, which is in the intellective appetite, also differs from goodwill, because it denotes a certain union of affections between the lover and the beloved, in as much as the lover deems the beloved as somewhat united to him, or belonging to him, and so tends towards him. On the other hand, goodwill is a simple act of the will, whereby we wish a person well, even without presupposing the aforesaid union of the affections with him. Accordingly, to love, considered as an act of charity, includes goodwill, but such dilection or love adds union of affections, wherefore the Philosopher says (Ethic. ix, 5) that “goodwill is a beginning of friendship.” Reply to Objection 1: The Philosopher, by thus defining “to love,” does not describe it fully, but mentions only that part of its definition in which the act of love is chiefly manifested. Reply to Objection 2: To love is indeed an act of the will tending to the good, but it adds a certain union with the beloved, which union is not denoted by goodwill. Reply to Objection 3: These things mentioned by the Philosopher belong to friendship because they arise from a man’s love for himself, as he says in the same passage, in so far as a man does all these things in respect of his friend, even as he does them to himself: and this belongs to the aforesaid union of the affections.