So, you think you’re in love…

By Miguela Mohammed

Philosophers define love not as a single emotion, but as a multidimensional drive, a practice or a journey toward truth and virtue. Over the years I asked myself, “what is love?”

Is love the act of partners becoming intimate? Is it when a man compliments a woman? Is it when a person asks their partner for more of themself because they are desirous? Is it the catcalls a woman would receive when simply walking down the road? Or is it respecting boundaries?

Through conversation I began to realise how many persons are unable to tell the difference between love and lust. As a Psychology major, I find myself evaluating situations a lot, trying to understand where each person is coming from or what may trigger their decisions and reactions. And when I thought of lust and love, I realised that everyone had it wrong.

It is easy for a person to get into a relationship and desire intimacy and label it as love, but sometimes, it can simply be lust…

To break it down, in Catholic theology lust and love are viewed as two opposing directions of the human will, rather than just different emotional intensities. While lust reduces a person to an object of self-gratification, authentic love wills the good of the other.

This distinction is deeply illuminated by Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body (TOB), a series of 129 Wednesday catechetical addresses delivered between 1979 and 1984.

St Thomas Aquinas famously defined love as “willing the good of the other.” It is an act of the will, requiring sacrifice, commitment and a total gift of self. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC 2351) defines lust as a “disordered desire for or inordinate enjoyment of sexual pleasure.” It becomes sinful when sexual pleasure is sought for its own sake, isolated from its original purpose of procreation and unity.

Therefore, one should not call it love when viewing the other as an object or instrument of physical, emotional or psychological utility/satisfaction. And one should not call it love when entertaining many persons at once.

Pope St John Paul II spent significant time analysing Matthew 5:28: “Anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

TOB highlights that Christ is not just condemning an external action, but He is calling us to redeem our desires. Christ points to the heart because that is where the battle between love and lust takes place. Through grace and the virtue of chastity (no to sex and yes to the true dignity of the person), our desires can be healed so that we can see others as God sees them.

We are constantly on a journey trying to distinguish between love and lust. But I believe the philosophers had it wrong, they forgot to mention that God is Love. And without Him, we cannot truly love one another. Without Him, we do not see the beauty, the Christ in each other, and without seeing the Christ in others, without seeing the person as precious, the object perception forms.

Calling it love does not magically make it love. You can be with someone for a while and still be acting on lust. It is time we look within, reevaluating ourselves, our intentions with others and our desires. Do we see persons as God sees them? Or do we see them as potential, an opportunity for satisfaction? If one continues to view others in such a way, their entire perception on love will remain corrupted. We yearn for love but confuse it for lust, however, unworthy as we are, God says that we are worthy of love. We are made for more.

Let this act as a call to pull back and evaluate your life. Are you in love/living with love…or is it lust?