This morning’s Gospel reading is John 13:31–33a, 34–35:
When Judas had left them, Jesus said,
“Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and God will glorify him at once. My children, I will be with you only a little while longer. I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Jesus commands us to go love one another. But what does that actually mean?
We have discussed the variety of meanings that have fallen into the catch-all English word “love” a number of times. In brief, the Scriptures use love where the original language likely used other and more specific forms. The Greek language has at least four words for different conceptions of love: eros, philia, storge, and agape. Eros refers to romantic love, which clearly isn’t the context for Jesus’ teaching. Philia refers to the love between friends, a bond that brings people together through voluntary affiliation — a very good thing, of course, but not exactly what Jesus means.
The obvious choice here is agape, in Latin caritas, as it defines self-sacrificial love for others regardless of affiliation. Agape orients itself toward God and the entirety of His creation. Agape is also a choice, a deliberate embrace of loving behavior at all costs regardless of the circumstances and the object toward which it is directed. In this particular reading, Jesus delivers His one commandment to the disciples just a couple of hours before the start of His Passion, in which He will embrace love for all of us at all costs in order to save us from eternal death and damnation.
And of course, Jesus certainly means this as the love to which He commands us.
However, let’s take a look at storge as well. The events of the past couple of weeks give us some context for the necessity of this form of love in our faith life, along with agape. Storge is commonly referred to as “familial love,” the sort of love that exists within families. (Maybe not every family, I grant you, but generally speaking.) It is the love parents feel for children, and vice-versa, and also the love siblings feel for one another. I’m clearly speaking in theory; even the Bible offers examples of families in scripture where storge is in short supply.
Storge in its usual form shares the same kind of self-sacrificing quality as agape, although in limited fashion. The parental instinct to sacrifice for the benefit of one’s children has that agape quality to it, and certainly many siblings embrace that for each other as well when necessary. Many are the tales of older siblings who essentially adopt their younger brothers and sisters and embrace deprivation for the success of their younger brothers and sisters.
The difference between storge and agape might boil down to obligation. Families are expected to act in love toward each other; when that fails and produces violence and hate, it’s exceptionally disturbing. C.S. Lewis mentions this in his book The Four Loves, preferring the word “affection” rather than the Greek and being somewhat dismissive of it:
The image we must start with is that of a mother nursing a baby, a bitch or a cat with a basketful ofpuppies or kittens; all in a squeaking, nuzzling heap together; purrings, lickings, baby-talk, milk, warmth, the smell of young life.
The importance of this image is that it presents us at the very outset with a certain paradox. The Need and Need-love of the young is obvious; so is the Gift-love of the mother. She gives birth, gives suck, gives protection. On the other hand, she must give birth or die. She must give suck or suffer. That way, her Affection too is a Need-love. There is the paradox. It is a Need-love but what it needs is to give. It is a Gift-love but it needs to be needed. …
It is indeed the least discriminating of loves. There are women for whom we can predict few wooers and men who are likely to have few friends. They have nothing to offer. But almost anyone can become an object of Affection; the ugly, the stupid, even the exasperating. There need be no apparent fitness between those whom it unites. I have seen it felt for an imbecile not only by his parents but by his brothers. It ignores the barriers of age, sex, class and education. It can exist between a clever young man from the university and an old nurse, though their minds inhabit different worlds. It ignores even the barriers of species. We see it not only between dog and man but, more surprisingly, between dog and cat. Gilbert White claims to have discovered it between a horse and a hen.
This seems to me to miss the mark. Lewis, admittedly far more brilliant than I am, picks up on aspects of eros and philia rather than storge, in part by renaming it Affection. The Greek word centers on actual physical relationships that often have less to do with affection than obligation. Not every parent and child are always affectionate at all times, but they are bound to each other nonetheless and called to act in love for each other even when affection wanes. That storge love is more powerful than just mere affection, and far more meaningful in both the secular and spiritual senses. Affection is a matter of taste, demanding little and depending on whim; storge connotes real commitment, both by nature and by choice.
This is most clearly true in the so-far unmentioned storge relationship: husbands and wives. Anyone who has managed to get past their honeymoon will know that the eros is not always present, and sometimes neither is the affection. Marriage is a beautiful sacrament, but it’s lived in the world, and anyone who tells you that Lewis’ concept of Affection is the binding element is unmarried. (In fairness, Lewis doesn’t argue that either.) Affection is not what gathers the family around the Thanksgiving table. It’s storge, the structured and expectational support for members in a familial relationship.
So why bring this up here? Much of what Jesus means, and arguably all of it, can be found in the meaning of agape. But consider the mission to which Jesus calls the disciples in this moment, after first washing their feet to make the point on self-sacrifice. Jesus calls them to love one another in the context of the Great Commission to come, through His church that Jesus has already founded. With the possible exception of John, each of the disciples in this lesson will literally give their lives to fulfill that mission and to expand the Church by the spreading of the Good News.
But for what purpose? To remind everyone that they are children of God and siblings of each other. The Church wants to return God’s children to the Father’s Trinitarian family by loving them enough to bring them back to the banquet. This is the story of the Prodigal Son as well — finding the lost son and embracing him, while the elder sibling smolders with resentment for having to carry his load. Jesus Christ calls us to the mission of restoring the Father’s family, and to feel that storge obligation to save our siblings from eternal catastrophe.
Jesus is not just calling us to agape, sacrificing our own desires for the sake of others, but to understand that we are all His children and work to restore those familial ties within our own hearts. He wants us to make storge an intentional choice, and by committing to it, form ourselves so that becomes as much our nature as agape. We need to embrace the full character of sacrificial love, and not just see Jesus in the face of others but to see others as our own family as well.
Previous reflections on these readings:
The front page image is “Christ Washing the Disciples’ Feet” by Giovanni Stefano Danedi, c. 17th century. On display at the National Gallery of Slovenia. Via Wikimedia Commons.
“Sunday Reflection” is a regular feature that looks at the specific readings used in today’s Mass in Catholic parishes around the world. The reflection represents only my own point of view, intended to help prepare myself for the Lord’s day and perhaps spark a meaningful discussion. Previous Sunday Reflections from the main page can be found here.
