There are two types of Love in human action.
Selfish-you wish good for the pleasure it will give you. This is technically called the love of concupiscence.
Unselfish-you wish good to another not for your own sake, but for the other persons sake. This is technically called the love of friendship.
The love of concupiscence isn't evil. Self love will lead a man to seek perfect happiness! But it is true that the love of friendship is a higher kind of love, because this love is what allows you to grow out of the limitations of your own small self and into the larger world of intimacy with other free spirits, human, angelic, and the divine.
Knowledge is key for love, St. Thomas says. The appetite is only moved by something that attracts it, or repels it. But this attraction or repulsion cannot take place unless the object is known and recognized as such. Some people say love is blind. But love isn't the mystery, it is the objects of love or the actions that flow from love that is the real mystery. Love is blind only when there is no knowledge of the object first. Love can be moved to an unsuitable object because only the good in it, and not the evil, was proposed to the senses. We will see what happens after the evil is proposed to the senses, later. What is important to remember is that you cannot love what you do not know.
But, the knowledge doesn't have to be perfect to love something. Lets look at a steak, for instance. You can love a steak when you smell that bad boy and see how juicy it is. You can cut into it and feel how tender it will be from the ease of the knife slicing through, only to reveal a perfect medium rare. A person can love a steak without actually trying it. But once the appetite is engaged, all you want to do is know it more, in this case, find out how it tastes. The point is that some knowledge that an object as a good is necessary for love to exist at all. Imagine if you were blindfolded, and your nose was pinned shut, and the same steak came to your table all ready cut up. You can not have the same feeling of love, because the knowledge isn't there, right?
Goodness in the object, when perceived, is the fundamental cause of love. Likeness is also a cause of love. People say opposites attract, but St. Thomas says if a angry person seeks a calm and collected person, it is actually the likeness, rather than the unlikeness, that draws one to another. You actually admire the quality, and would like it for yourself.
"Where ever love is seen in action, it is obvious that love aims at the union between the lover and the loved one. It is love that drives a young man to want to be with his fiancee. It is love which makes a wife want the presence of her husband who is out of town.
The union caused by love is found at its best in the intimate life that lovers lead in one another. A man in love with a woman has the thought of her with him always. She lives in his mind and in his imagination. She lives in his will for when she is with him he is pleased, and when she is away he desires her presence. The lover seeks also to live in his beloved. They desire to know everything about each other. This explains why courting couples find so much to talk about. They are trying to get into one another's personalities by learning all they can about one another. The lover seeks even to live in the heart and will of his or her beloved. So lovers never are satisfied with one declaration of love, they want to say it and hear it over and over again. When this unifying effect of love is found in both parties, then human love between human beings is found at its highest.
Love is also ecstatic. To be in ecstasy means to go out of ones self. But it is characteristic of love that it makes you think less of yourself and more of the object you love. It will even move you to make personal sacrifices for the sake of the one you love... In this way is also the cause of zeal and jealousy. A lover is zealous and energetic in trying to do good things for the person he or she loves. Or he is jealous of anyone or anything which seems to threaten his exclusive possession of the one he loves."
But love can also injure or wound you, too. It is a movement of the appetite whether sensible or rational to Good. But sometimes a particular good thing is not suitable for mankind. Food is good, sure, but the love for too much food is gluttonous. An injury has objectively occurred. Love must be under the control of judgement of right reason or it can harm you more than it benefits you.
Even though there is a danger of loving things rashly, we must always remember love is basically an inclination for a good. Its behind every human action. Even if Hitler wanted to rule the world, its because he loved power. if you want to play the lotto, its because you love money.If you volunteer at an animal shelter, its because you love animals (or were court ordered to do service hours.) The bottom line is love seeks good.
The opposite of love is hate. Love, we said, is a movement towards good. Hate is a movement away from evil. If I set that steak before you again, you would see it as a good, and eat it. However, if I replaced that steak with a green and moldy piece of meat that you knew was left out for the flies for a couple of days, you would know its bad and hate it. All hatred is based on a love that comes before it. You hate it, because it will rob you of something you love. In this case, your health or life.
Hatred makes such a strong impression that we might think of hatred as stronger than love. But St. Thomas goes on, that with a little reflection, we will see love as always stronger. The stronger the hate, the stronger the love. I don't like mosquito bites because they are itchy and I like my comfort. I really hate eating rancid food, because it will kill me I love my life. Hatred is okay. It lets us make decisions not to do things that will ultimately destroy us. BUT BE CAREFUL! Why do we hate "hate?" Because so often hatred is for its own sake. Make sure what you hate is evil! Do not hate a good! Then hate becomes a disservice! If someone has made you hate something good, it is their fault, not the object's fault which remains good. That is why the edification of your neighbor is so important. And that's when this author interjects with a prayer.
Oh my God, I am dearly sorry for having turned off many souls from love of Your holy Church. Please, allow them to hate me (or the evil in me) instead of hating something so pure. Thank You for giving us the Church, and all of the successors of St. Peter. Make my love for each and every one of them grow by wanting to know them more. For the ones that are dead and I will never meet, and the one that is alive, this can be achieved by researching them and praying to them or for them. Give me the grace to read documents from Pre-Councillior or Post-Councillor popes, not because I may like/dislike what they say, but because they are popes, and because they reigned in Your good name. Allow me to know; so that I may love good, and hate evil. That I may then DO good, and avoid evil. Amen.
I covered what I wanted to cover pretty much. However, I would like to end with St. Thomas' teachings on desire. Desire is distinct from love. Love is complacency in the good. Desire is a tendency toward a good which is not yet present (or I might add lost.) When people have what the love, they no longer desires it, they only enjoy it...
St. Thomas, Angelic Doctor, pray for us.
up next... I don't know...
Source- My Way of Life, the pocket edition of the Summa
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