When I was in high school, I delighted in listening to my parent’s old albums. I quickly became an avid Beatles fan, so much so that in my senior yearbook I quoted John Lennon saying, “Love is all you need.” 

 

Looking back now I feel duped, because what I understood love to mean was so radically different than what Lennon and the culture of his day meant. It is often said, “‘Love’ is the most-misused word in the English language. We use the word love to describe our relationship with food, hobbies, and family. Certainly, we do not mean the same reality exists between a Dove chocolate bar and our child. Even on a deeper level we use love to describe an emotion, attraction, physical intimacy, familial bonds, and sacrifice — realities that are often connected but not interchangeable.

 

Our culture is in a predicament. We are unable to articulate what genuine love is, but we know it is supremely important. This has dangerous consequences. It means if someone attaches the word love — even erroneously — to something, that thing is granted an exalted status, so much so that it cannot be questioned and must be approved. 

 

This becomes particularly concerning when the idea of love is unmoored from the genuine good of a person. This can be seen in the self-absorbed view of love espoused in pop culture today. This view says: love is really the pursuit of self, an exercise in self-fulfillment and personal happiness. I love who or what makes me happy at the time and discard what does not. Therefore, if I perceive that something will make me happy, in the name of love, I am obliged to follow it and you are obliged to accept it regardless of morality, commonsense, or regard for others. Stunningly, this is the opposite of love because it turns us inward and uses the other for our own self-interest. Sadly, it also guarantees personal misery. 

 

1 John 4:8 says, “God is love.” St. John is not just describing an attribute of God, that He is loving or lovable. He is giving us a glimpse into God’s inner life (Catechism of the Catholic Church 221). As a Trinity, God eternally exists as a dynamic self-giving and life-giving community of love between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Trinity is the perfect definition and model of genuine love. 

 

First, from it we see that love is an exchange between persons. It requires a lover and a beloved. While we should love ourselves and pets, it is not enough. We are meant for communion with other persons, human and divine. 

 

Second, love is a total gift of self to the other. We are called to give our whole person, every fiber of our being: mind, body, and soul. Such a gift is so radical that Christ has given us the sacraments of holy orders and matrimony to make it possible. 

 

Third, love is selfless. God did not create out of a selfish need; He did it for our sake, so that we might also be happy. Love seeks the greatest good of another for their own sake. After the fall, this selflessness often requires sacrifice. Jesus tells the apostles, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (Jn 15:13). 

 

How many parents, spouses, religious, and clergy have poured themselves out for the greatest good of those whom they love? And while dying to ourselves may seem like foolishness to the world, it is the only path to eternal life and true happiness (Jn 12:24-25). 

 

Finally, love is life-giving. As the Holy Spirit proceeds from the love between the Father and Son, so too our love must give rise to life, naturally or spiritually. There is a great emptiness in our world, and it is because we have forgotten what genuine love is — total, selfless, and life-giving. This love is our identity and purpose. And if “God is Love,” then “love is all you need.” (See Jn 4:7-21).