The virtue of charity or love

This was originally prepared as a reflection for a youth ministry session at St. Anthony of Padua parish.

The word “love” in English is used to mean so many different things these days.  For example, when I say “I love pizza”, does the “love” in that statement equate to a husband saying “I love you” to his wife?

In other languages we find different “types” of love have different words.  For example, in Greek, four main types of love are:

  • storge – familial love, love between parent and child
  • philia – friendship or bonds between people with common values or interests;
  • eros – romantic or intimate love;
  • agape – the kind of love that Christ taught and showed and this is the type of love we will be focusing on today.
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