Five Forms of Love

Let us stick to the meaning of love that I have presented in my previous article. To love someone means sincerely desiring that person’s good and doing what we can to promote it. Right now, I am thinking of a bishop I know and admire. When he learned that a poor girl in Delhi needed a kidney and could not afford a donor, the bishop got himself tested, found that his kidney would match hers, and offered to donate his kidney. He is from Tamil Nadu; the girl is from Delhi. So, it was not an offer based on sameness of language, place, caste, or whatever. This is true love—the readiness to help someone at the cost of sacrifice, without asking for any remuneration.

So, true love is very different from mere attraction, or doing something to get something, or looking for attention when we do something for someone else.

This genuine love takes five forms. They do overlap, but each has two specific traits. They are: parental love, brotherly/sisterly love, spousal love, love of friendship and Divine Love. A few words about each.

(1) Parental love: This is the first love each of us has experienced—the love our mother and father showed us from our birth. Parents do not need coaxing or training for this. This is almost instinctual. Parents feel attached to their children, and are ready to make sacrifices for them without having to be asked or coaxed or forced. I am not saying that all parents are perfect. A parent can have flaws other human beings have—anger, partiality, moods, selfishness, addictions, fights, etc. But a mother and father will care for their children without having to be asked. In this sense, parental love is gratuitous. It does not have to be won.

Another trait of parental love is that it is unequal. Children will hardly ever love their parents as much as the parents love them. In fact, there are grown-up sons and daughters who do not care for their parents. Even then the parents continue to love them. When a couple look after their children, they cannot be certain that the kids, once grown up, will care for them. In fact, it often turns out that the son or daughter who looks after the aged parents may not be the one on whom the parents showered more affection. Response to parental love (or any love) is not automatic.

(2) Brotherly/Sisterly love: This is the love between brothers and sisters. It is mutual, but not exclusive. I can love my brothers and sisters, and they can love me, as equals. This is the model of love extended to larger “families” (like a religious community or institution or diocese or country). I may have just one sister or brother; someone else may have several. The number does not matter. Mutuality and non-exclusive affection mark this type of love.

(3) Spousal love: This is sexual. It is the love between husband and wife. It is mutual and exclusive. A married man or woman cannot love another woman or man in the same way. Spouses should love each other. If a man just makes use of his wife for his sexual satisfaction and cooking and caring for the kids, or if the wife wants a man to take care of her financial needs, but does not love him, then it will be an unhappy marriage. The children need to see that their parents love each other, and can count on each other. This love is not easy. To adjust to another person for life-long is not easy. It demands much sacrifice, repeated efforts to understand and adjust to each other, and many acts of forgiveness. A businessman, transformed by falling in love with Jesus, told me that when he and his wife disagree, they do not fight over it. Rather, they pray over it. In this way, they have become closer to each other. It is not physical attraction or money that assures a happy marriage, but genuine mutual love sustained by prayer and mutual understanding.

(4) Love of friendship: All of us have friends. Its two traits are: mutuality and non-exclusive relationship. If Tom, Shankar, and their friends can do it, it means they love each other and can count on each other. It also means that each of them can have other friends. One friendship does not cut me off from other relationships. Just saying hello and sending messages on WhatsApp is not friendship. Mutual love, mutual support, readiness to help and make sacrifices—these traits are essential to any form of love.

Nowadays, some people claim to have hundreds of “friends” on the Net. Just because you have their phone number and can forward videos to them, it does not mean you are friends. Who are the people you can count on—e.g., in times of financial need or illness—and who are the people who can count on you to help them?

(5) Divine Love: We cannot describe God or claim to know how God loves. We speak of God using human experiences. Thus, we refer to God as a loving Father or Mother, Jesus as our brother and friend, etc. The Bible uses many images to speak about God. It attributes to God a range of human emotions—warmth, tenderness, closeness, anger, forgiveness, jealousy, disappointment, etc.  We will never be able to love God back as God loves us. Literally, I cannot do anything for God. God needs nothing from me. But we are asked to love God and respond to His offer of love. The mystics often use human images to describe their deepest experiences. St Teresa of Avila’s description of her experience of God sounds very much like the way two human beings in love relate intimately.

The Bible and other religious texts attribute human emotions to God. See how Prophet Isaiah speaks of God’s tender love for human beings: “Can a mother forget her child or not have love for her own son? Yet, even if this were to happen, I will not forget you. See, I have written your name on the palm of my hand.”

How do we get to experience and understand God’s love for us? Not through study or cleverness. We know God by becoming a deeply loving human being. The best among us know God best. Intelligence is a good tool to learn a language or study a subject. E.g., I need to know English to write this article, and you need to understand English to read it. This is not how we know God. The saints know Him best. They are the ones closest to God. Just as a dear and tenderly caring friend understands a human being best, the best among us know God more fully. For God is love.

To conclude, you do not become loving by reading this article, nor I by writing it. The real test is our normal life—how we relate, how deeply we care, how we speak with and about others, how grateful we are for the love we have received, and how keen we are on increasing the love and goodness in the world.

Blurbs

True love is very different from mere attraction, or doing something to get something, or looking for attention when we do something for someone else.

We will never be able to love God back as God loves us. Literally, I cannot do anything for God. God needs nothing from me. But we are asked to love God and respond to His offer of love.