Before you were formed in the womb, before anybody else knew that you existed, God formulated your life, your plan, you as a person, purely out of the goodness and joy of His fatherly heart for the purpose to love and being loved. The human desire that we have to love and be loved is often filled with a love that we should not seek or a love that doesn’t glorify God, a love that is harmful, hurtful, and dangerous. Our sole purpose is to love and to be loved, the two desires of the human heart. The catholic church has divided four different types of love: storge, philia, eros, and agape. Storge is empathic love in Greek, a love that is defined by a familial bond or maybe an automatic love. For example, the bible talks about the love between Noah and his sons, Mary and Marta, and their brother Lazarus. God provides an example of the love of a family through the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. I have been blessed by a family that is filled with love for each other and the people of the world surrounding us. Philia love is the love of friendship rooted in John 15:13, which states, “No one can have greater love than to lay down his life for his friends.” Philia love is the love that we experience as brothers and sisters in Christ on earth. This is the love of friendship and the good of the other; the people that you share this love with are the people that you are chasing heaven with. Eros is romantic love; this type of love is reserved for marriage. It is the intimacy between husband and wife that God has created for marriage. The reservation of eros love for marriage causes the foundation of this love to be centralized within a marriage rather than an earthly relationship of dating, hook-up culture, and sinfulness. Eros’s love is intensified by acts of selflessness and can be diminished by selfishness, similar to agape love. Agape love is the greatest form of love; it is the form of love that God has for his sons and daughters on earth, an eternal, unconditional, and persistent love. Agape love is the greatest love that a human being can experience. The most sought-after form of love is the love that will never be filled by the things of this world. The only place of truth and understanding that we can find agape love is through God and Jesus; seeking the fulfillment of this love through earthly things will only ever end in shamefulness, sin, and failure. The greatest gift that we are given by God is the ability to love and to be loved; however, humans were created in God’s image and likeness and given free will. Free will doesn’t tell us that the love we seek is hurtful or wrong; free will allows us to make mistakes that, if living in faith, will lead to turning back to Jesus.  These types of love are broad, and if the love that you believe you are living in doesn’t fit into one of these categories, then it is not a love consecrated by God; it is not a love that is glorifying God. The Bible clearly says this in St. Paul’s Letter to the Corinthians. This iconic verse teaches us what love is. 1 Corinthians 13:4-8, I would dare to say one of the most well-known and respected verses that are easy to share without a constant attempt at evangelization. 

“4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.8 Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end.” 

Looking for the love that Jesus Christ has in the form of earthly love is probably one of the hardest searches that mankind will ever embark on. It would be a lie to say that I have always believed in the love that is preached about by the bible and the church. This great and glorified love is hard to understand, which makes it so much better. The fact that it is a love that challenges our hearts is the greatest gift of love that the Lord could give us. When living in search of love, we are created to want to receive and give all four categories of love. All types of love can be strong and present; however, the most important and fulfilling type of love is the love of God. The Bible, faith, and the world tell us to love everyone; we are to love our friends, family, and enemies; the line between biblical and earthly love is drawn by love that glorifies God and mimics the agape love that he has for all of us. The easiest type of love to be lost in is eros. Romantic love, growing up, there were boyfriends, and for men, girlfriends, there were cooties and crushes as you grow that love because of a marriage; sharing of the eros love that God created for marriage. Giving away the love that is reserved for your spouse is an act of sin; it is sinful to make emotional, spiritual, and physical promises to another person who is not your spouse. The goal of any relationship between friends or a romantic partner is to cultivate joy, happiness, and a Christ-centered foundation to lead each other to heaven. Learning what love is is the most important and grace-filled experience of living in the earthly presence of God. I will be the first person to tell you that before you know what any type of love is, you must know the love of God. Without agape love, the love that you could be living is not the love that was created for you. Without knowing the love of Christ, God, and Mary, you will never know the true love and rights of love here on earth because those three exemplify the beauty of a perfect love. The greatest beginning of love starts by taking your grace and enthusiasm and pushing it toward the people that you love, the same way that the Lord teaches us to love. The deeper we fall into the biblical and heavenly love, the deeper the love that we can share with others. The deeper we fall into worldly love with others, the further that love confuses us with the differences between love rooted in God and love rooted in lust or desire. The most important love to implement in your worldly relationships is sacrificial love. This love is the same love that God had for the world by giving his only begotten son to the world. This is the love that Jesus had for the sinners and the world to sacrifice his own body to save the world from our sins. Jesus is the ultimate sacrifice. To have the opportunity to show others the type of love that Jesus gave us in his death, resurrection, and ascension into heaven is the greatest opportunity to live out your faith. Sacrificial love is the will for the good of the other and to continue to lay down your pride, life, wants, and needs for the people you love. Searching for authentic charity, love, and faith in the world must begin through the presence of agape love in your life. To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial; to be known and not loved is humankind’s biggest freedom. But to be fully known and fully loved is like being by God and is the standard of our worldly love. The fact that we get to be so loved by someone who sees the raw, unfiltered versions of ourselves is the most comforting fact that this world needs, and every single day we should thank God for himself, his sacrifice, and to know his unwavering, eternal love. The understanding that the purest form of love you don’t have to earn, the humanity of understanding that God is greater than the ups and downs of the world, he has created you for such a time that the world needs more love, more authentic, charitable, and sacrificial love. The opposite of this love is use; choosing to use the people and things that are given to you in this life is harmful. The ultimate humility of the act of love is an example of the purest form of love that we can receive from other people, the Lord, and the greatest gift that we can give. When lacking in any love during your earthly life, the search for love must begin in the search for the love of Christ. This is also the most direct and clear search that exists within the faith; it is a matter of finding the truth and glory in His love. Jesus Christ came to surrender himself for the sins of the world, which is the ultimate act of sacrificial love. This is the biggest proof of the love of God and Jesus, and you will find that love through the intention of prayer, understanding of love, and removing wrongful and harmful components of earthly love. In the search for love, we must first seek and understand the greatest love of all—the agape love of God. While earthly love can be beautiful, it is only through Christ that we find the purest, most fulfilling love, one that is unconditional, sacrificial, and eternal. By grounding ourselves in His love, we can cultivate meaningful relationships that glorify God rather than seeking love in ways that lead to confusion, sin, and emptiness. True love mirrors the love of Christ—a love that sacrifices, forgives, and endures. The absolute most important, gracious, and uplifting thing that God has done for mankind is creating us in his image and likeness with the ability to love and the ability to be loved, because without love, this earthly life is not worth living. The journey of finding love begins with Him, for only in His presence do we truly grasp the depth and purpose of love in our lives.