I read recently that the word “deacon” comes from a Greek word for “servant,” or more directly, a “waiter of tables.” My grandfather on my mother’s side became a deacon in the Catholic Church in the later part of his life. Among Catholics, the deaconate is the closest you can get to being a priest without taking priestly vows of celibacy.

The Book of Acts describes the growth of the early Church, and how the Twelve Apostles (Judas was replaced) took on seven deacons so that they themselves could focus on preaching and teaching. Among the rituals or sacraments of the early Church seems to have been something which is now referred to as the Agape Feast. After the Reformation, this practice was revived by such groups as the Moravians in the form of the Love Feast:

The Lovefeast is based upon the Agape feast and the meals of the early churches described in the Bible in the Acts of the Apostles, which were partaken in unity and love. It is not, however, to be confused with or serve as a replacement for Communion. Traditionally for European, Canadian, and American Lovefeasts, a sweetened bun and coffee (sweetened milky tea in Germany, Holland and England) is served to the congregation in the pews by dieners (from the German for servers); before partaking, a simple table grace is said. The foods and drinks consumed from congregation may vary tremendously at the Lovefeast and are usually adapted from what the congregations have available. Services in some Colonial-era Lovefeasts, for example, used plain bread and water; some in Salem were even known to have served beer.

Agape is one of several Greek words for Love found in the Bible, which in Latin correlates to Caritas, and in English is Charity, selfless love, one of the highest of virtues. CS Lewis, in his Christian analysis, The Four Loves, called caritas the highest form of Love:

Caritas (agapē, αγαπη) is an unconditional love directed towards one’s neighbor which is not dependent on any lovable qualities that the object of love possesses. Agape is the love that brings forth caring regardless of circumstance. Lewis recognizes this as the greatest of loves, and sees it as a specifically Christian virtue. The chapter on the subject focuses on the need of subordinating the natural loves to the love of God, who is full of charitable love. Lewis states that “He is so full, in fact, that it overflows, and He can’t help but love us.”

These words have been swirling around in my mind for months now, as I see clearly just how possible it really is to live according to these values. When you’re in a state of abundance, when you’ve been given many gifts, it becomes only natural for you to want to give those gifts to everyone else: selfless love. When you’re in a state of lack, however, it seems impossibly difficult.

Caritas, in either case, seems to me to be the Christian ideal governing actions between sovereign beings. Love your enemy. Love your neighbor. Love yourself. Love God. In attempting to adhere to this method of Love, older and more juvenile concepts of Love which I have clung to are gradually falling away. Specifically, ideas I had about what constitutes a “Romantic” relationship, and what the foundations of a lasting and committed relationship of that nature ought to be.

I’m still, however, hammering out the details as I go along. Which is why I wanted to introduce the subject into the conversation space here. What I have come up with so far goes something like this…

1. Love limited is not Love. Or at least not the kind of Love we should be striving towards and not the kind that truly endures and acts as the foundation for great lives, works and relationships. Love must be universally applied in order to be Love, to be caritas or agape.
2. Love is not possessive. Possessiveness comes from (A) a desire to control, and (B) a fear of losing control. Control and fear are incompatible with Love. True Love, caritas, washes away such pettiness. There is that saying, “If you love someone, set them free.” I find, at this point, that statement to be accurate.

[Compare to 1 Corinthians 13.]

If Love is not limited or possessive, then it seems that my previous concepts of it have been all but overthrown - because those are very much the conceits I was operating under in the past and calling them Love. Was I wrong? Was I never really “in Love”? I find such conjecture to be fruitless, so I leave it be and seek to perfect my being in the here and now, and henceforth. My mode of operation, at this point, is to selflessly Love everyone: people I know and people I don’t. It’s not some silly impossible ideal either, but it takes a certain amount of discipline and a great deal of self-sacrifice. The part of yourself that is possessive and limiting is the part that must be sacrificed. Fortunately, this is also the part of oneself which causes suffering. To root out one is to root out the other and to make room for the highest form of Love.

While I believe that God is the Fount of All Love, I also believe that Our God is a God of Reason and that we are “made in His image” so to speak. Therefore, I recognize that part of me seeks to logically solve this seeming contradiction between my efforts to apply Love universally to all beings, and the strong desire I find within my heart to have intimate personal relationships, and to (eventually) commit myself to one woman in an enduring bond.

I guess you could say that before I discovered the possibility and reality of living according to caritas, I was acting as though eros was the highest form of love:

Eros (ἔρως érōs) is passionate love, with sensual desire and longing. The Modern Greek word “erotas” means “(romantic) love”. The term erotic is derived from eros.

Plato refined his own definition. Although eros is initially felt for a person, with contemplation it becomes an appreciation of the beauty within that person, or even becomes appreciation of beauty itself. Plato does not talk of physical attraction as a necessary part of love, hence the use of the word platonic to mean, “without physical attraction”. Plato also said Eros helps the soul recall knowledge of beauty, and contributes to an understanding of spiritual truth. Lovers and philosophers are all inspired to tell the truth by eros, the god of love.

Lewis, however, subjugates it to caritas, which I agree with based on my present experiences. I suspect that, as implied above, one must fully commit oneself to the recollection of beauty and the telling of the truth which eros inspires before one may be washed clean and fully live in the presence of agape or caritas.

If you’re supposed to love everybody equally and selflessly though, how are you supposed to have what we would ordinarily think of as romantic relationships with others - relationships which, when they hit us, seem to come directly from God? I don’t have a perfect answer, but I think it’s important to realize that the various types of love don’t invalidate one another. Just because caritas is a “better” or somehow more perfectly realized form of love doesn’t mean that eros (passion) or philia (affection) are invalid and not worth following. All types of Love are gifts from God. Caritas, I think, is meant to act as a pointer, an ideal yet real target for people to shoot at, a governor for the drives towards union behind all types of love.

The way I’ve been phrasing the “problem” for myself goes something like this then:

1. If Love should be selfless and universally applied, then what makes an intimate relationship between two people special?
2. The immediate answer which springs to mind is passion (eros). But if there’s one thing I have found about passion is that it is motherfucking inconsistent. It’s almost like the tides or the pull of the moon as it shifts through its cycles, but much much less predictable.
3. Therefore, in my reckoning, if passion is unpredictable, inconsistent and mutable, then it alone cannot be the foundation of a lasting, meaningful and committed relationship. If you just chase after passion your whole life, you may never find rest or fulfillment: the hunter whose prey always eludes him in the end.
4. But if we’re ’supposed’ to love everybody and passion may or may not be reliable, then what the hell is left to us? This has been bugging me to no end. But I feel like I’m beginning to see the outlines of an answer…

And that answer is deceptively simple, if not in some ways much more difficult to live up to than either caritas or eros. That answer to me is simply this: the commitments we make to one another in our hearts, in our words and our deeds, before God, and before our community. “Commitment” is another word for “promise.” Another word I like for this is “vow” which is supposed to be the foundation for marriage as well. The difference between a promise, commitment and vow - as far as I can tell - is one of scale. But they all mean the same basic thing: two people who have devoted themselves to one another, but who have also devoted themselves together to the Enduring Mysteries of Love.

That is, caritas says we should selflessly love everyone. So the foundation of any intimate relationship must be that. For whatever reason, the fires of passion ignite certain relationship bonds and not others. Some of these fires last a long long time and others flare up and vanish quickly. A vow, a commitment, a promise though is the dedication of one’s will towards a goal, towards an ideal. When you make a vow, you don’t do so with the understanding that you can back out of it if conditions change, if the flames of passion die down, or if the other person does something to piss you off. A vow is lasting not of itself, but because it is an on-going commitment of human will and the continual application of effort to stick with it no matter what. It’s not to be entered into lightly, of course. And I’m still not sure about what conditions should warrant one to change their mind, to change their heart and break a vow which they have made before God and the community. Maybe there are no such conditions. Maybe that’s the point of making a vow in the first place: no escape clause, no emergency exit hatch you can use when things get hairy. Maybe Love - True Love, the kind that really endures and sustains - is nothing more than a decision: a decision to stick with a decision already made, and to celebrate the many faces of Love which all ultimately come from God.

Either way, I know one thing for certain: Love has no masters, only servants.