Kyle Dresback
Friends,
I was excited a few months back upon seeing that the Latin phrase ordo amoris— Augustine’s concept of rightly ordered loves—was trending online. My excitement turned to dismay when I saw that this ancient Christian idea was being used as a blunt object for political debate. Enter the backlash and the counter-backlash and God save us from our online discourse.
The original concept of ordo amoris finds its roots in today’s gospel reading. When Jesus is asked what is the greatest commandment, he reaches first for the Shema: “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.”
To this prayer he adds an instruction from Leviticus: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Love God; love your neighbor. It’s simple in concept but not always in practice. This is where Augustine can be helpful.
One of Augustine‘s contributions to early Christian thought was his assertion that we are not primarily rational thinkers, though we like to think of ourselves that way. He argued that we are lovers first, describing love almost as a gravitational force: We are pulled along for good or ill by the “weight” of our love.
When our loves are disordered —for example, loving God’s gifts over the Giver—our hearts become restless and wayward. We find ourselves disoriented when we fixate on ephemeral and secondary things as though they were ultimate things.
For such a brilliant innovator of Christian theology, I have often found Augustine to be a helpful corrective to an overly intellectualized faith. When he prays, “Set love in order in me,” it’s a humble plea for an ordered heart that flows from a cultivated love for God as the giver of all good things.
To be a follower of Jesus is, in many ways, the daily practice of keeping our loves in the proper order. When we pause to thank God for a relationship, an answered prayer, even our possessions, we are loving those gifts rightly. In doing so, we can find the freedom to love both God and neighbor rightly as well.
In Christ,
—Kyle
