Fr Alex Swain
Beloved in Christ,
An interesting review titled “Love and human flourishing,” published in 2025 by VanderWeele & Lee in the International Journal of Wellbeing examined the relationship between, as you may have guessed, love and… well, human flourishing.
There is substantive evidence that the qualities of “love” are fundamental for human wellbeing within social, educational, political, religious, and workplace environments.
These findings resonate powerfully with St. Paul’s 13th chapter of his first epistle to the church in Corinth where he writes, most beautifully, on the power of love. “If I speak in the tongues of humans and of angels but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal” (1 Cor. 13:1), “If I have prophetic powers… but do not have love, I am nothing” (v.2), “If I give away all my possessions… but do not have love, I gain nothing.” (v. 3).
“And now faith, hope, and love remain… and the greatest of these is love.” (v. 13).
Love is fundamental to our faith. And love is fundamental, it seems, to our human being-ness. The need for love is woven into our biology, our psychology, or very nature.
“Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.” (1 John 4:8).
Today is the Feast of St. Aelred of Rievaulx (1109-1167). Friendship, community, and love were central to his focus, and he taught that friendship is “a gift from God and a creation of human effort” (Lesser Feasts & Fasts 2024). Aelred created a Cistercian house which housed 600 monks by the time of his death!
He allowed monks to hold hands and give expressions of friendship and community often frowned upon. He noted that there were four qualities of friendship, “Loyalty, right intention, discretion, and patience.”
St. Aelred helped craft a community of love 900 years ago. A community built on human flourishing which God intends for us, steeped, rooted, and washed in divine love.
In his witness, and in the witness of the Holy Scripture, how do we encounter love every day? Every encounter—at work, in our home, at the grocery store and gas station—is an opportunity to witness and experience the love of God found in our fellow people, made in the imago dei.
May Christ lead us to love more and more fully each and every day!
Yours in Christ,
—Fr Alex