When you travel through the country and see some of our churches you discover a lot of strange things. – A Church in Colorado Springs has no statues. Then I have seen churches where banners are streaming everywhere: on the walls and in the sanctuary. And the predominant word is "LOVE". "God is love." "Love your neighbor," etc. I do not recall seeing a banner with the words: "If you love Me, keep My commandments," because that calls for a lot of work and sweat at times on our part. Seldom, if ever, in the history of the human race has there been so much talk about love – but so little of the real thing. The notion of love has been and is distorted, and twisted in many ways.

First, it is not unusual to hear or read that if a couple is petting or having sexual relations they are "making love." So love is equated with sex. But true love is much vaster than just sex. True love is a – jewel with many facets. If a couple is lawfully married, sex should be one of the facets of real love.

I am sure that the vast majority of you are acquainted with the column of Ann Landers in the daily papers. She once said in a lecture that failing to know what love really is accounts for most of the unfortunate things she hears about in letters from her readers. A couple think they are in love; but it is really just sex. Sex, by mere body chemistry, can produce a feeling of tenderness towards another – but that is not real love. Body chemistry can do remarkable things to the mind. Ann continued, saying that so many get married thinking they are in love, when it is really only chemistry. In a year or two the jag wears off and they find themselves in the same house with someone they do not really love. So, Ann Landers, and the divorce courts get business.

It is easy enough to see that love is not really just a feeling. Our Lord commanded us to love our neighbor. He made it clear that everyone is our neighbor. So let us be realistic. I ask myself, "What about the people who live three blocks from me on the corner? Do I have, right now, a feeling, a warm feeling towards them? Hardly. I do not even know their names. If love were a feeling, then His command would be impossible. For I simply cannot have a warm feeling towards everyone in the world. And what about the love of enemies – for we must love them too? Do I really have such a warm feeling towards them? Or do I have a warmer feeling towards God Himself than I have for anyone in this world – for I must love Him above all?"

Others distort L-U-V, thinking they have some affection for others. I once read about a person who said that he thought people were wonderful. He was "high" on people. And at times they do act as though they had real love. But when critical occasions arise, the deception falls away.

We must find out what love really is. There are several ways to approach this problem. We can’t do better than to start with the Bible. In St. John’s Gospel we read: "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish, but may have eternal life." In other words, God’s love for man was such that He went to great lengths for our happiness. He went so far because He wanted, He desired our happiness, even eternal happiness. So, love must be a desire to will for the happiness of another. St. Thomas arrived at the same truth in a different way. He wrote in his Summa "to love is to will good to another." Astonishingly, St. Thomas found those words in the writings of the pagan philosopher Aristotle and forthwith Christianized them.

If this is what love is, we can see something very profound. Love, as we said, is not a feeling. Where is love located in our human structure? A desire is in our free will. If I, by a decision of my free will, wish, desire or will good to another, then I love that person.

But there is a danger of misunderstanding. Some who are drunk on sex, for example, those who go in for pre-marital sex or extra-marital sex, will say: "But I do will happiness to my partner." We reply, "Then do not endanger your partner’s eternal happiness. If you put that in jeopardy, you not only do not love – you are closer to hating."

Someone may ask: "Do not feelings go with love?" We reply, "Sometimes, but not necessarily. To explore that relation fully would take a long time."

When a human being loves another, what induces or starts his desiring that happiness of the other? It is the fact that a person sees (or think he sees) something good, something fine in the other. Then he, as it were, says to himself, "So fine a person. I want that person to be well off and to be happy. I want that person to get what he or she needs to be happy."