God is Love

Yesterday, the Vatican published the first encyclical of Pope Benedict XVI. Entitled “Deus Caritas Est,” the encyclical begins with a quotation from 1 John 4:16, “God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.” The Latin “Deus caritas est” translates to “God is love” in English.

Some are already considering it not only as the Holy Father’s program for his pontificate but also as the Catholic Church’s program for the third millennium. If that is so, then the third millennium should be called “The Millennium of Love.”

As the title clearly suggests, the encyclical’s theme centers on love. After explaining the linguistic as well as the philosophical difference and unity of love as “agape” and as “eros,” the Pope talks about Jesus Christ as the incarnate love of God. Then he focuses on the unbreakable link between love of God and love of neighbor. For the Pontiff, love of neighbor “consists in the very fact that, in God and with God, I love even the person whom I do not like or even know. This can only take place on the basis of an intimate encounter with God, an encounter which has become a communion of will, even affecting my feelings.”

The second part of the encyclical places accent on the Church as a “community of love” and as “God’s family in the world.” Having said earlier that love of neighbor is “a responsibility for each individual member of the faithful,” the Holy Father stresses that charity is a responsibility of the Church and that its charitable activities are a manifestation of Trinitarian love.

The relationship between justice and charity is also given ample emphasis in the encyclical. The Pope states that “the promotion of justice through efforts to bring about openness of mind and will to the demands of the common good is something which concerns the Church deeply.” In this context, he reaffirmed John Paul II’s conviction that “the building of a better world requires Christians to speak with a united voice in working to inculcate respect for the rights and needs of everyone, especially the poor, the lowly and the defenceless.”

The encyclical has given me a glimpse into the heart of our new pope. Many people regard him as intellectual and helplessly out of touch. By choosing to focus on God as love and on the Church as a community of love, the Holy Father revealed that side of him which we all wanted to see – a father who feels, who truly loves, who cares for others, and whose feet are firmly grounded on earth. And like him, I hope that as God’s family, the Church, our Church, may become “a place where help is given and received, and at the same time, a place where people are also prepared to serve those outside her confines who are in need of help.”