Youcat commented through CCC – Question n. 402.

YOUCAT Question n. 402 - What is love?

(Youcat answer)  Love is the free self-giving of the heart.    

A deepening through CCC

(CCC 2346) Charity is the form of all the virtues. Under its influence, chastity appears as a school of the gift of the person. Self-mastery is ordered to the gift of self. Chastity leads him who practices it to become a witness to his neighbor of God's fidelity and loving kindness.        

Reflecting and meditating 

(Youcat comment) To have a heart full of love means to be so pleased with something that one emerges from oneself and devotes oneself to it. A musician can devote himself to a masterpiece. A kindergarten teacher can be there wholeheartedly for her charges. In every friendship there is love. The most beautiful form of love on earth, however, is the love between man and woman, in which two people give themselves to each other forever. All human love is an image of divine love, in which all love is at home. Love is the inmost being of the Triune God. In God there is continual exchange and perpetual self-giving. Through the overflowing of divine love, we participate in the eternal love of God. The more a person loves, the more he resembles God. Love should influence the whole life of a person, but it is realized with particular depth and symbolism when man and woman love one another in marriage and become “one flesh” (Gen 2:24).  

(CCC Comment)

(CCC 1826) "If I… have not charity," says the Apostle, "I am nothing." Whatever my privilege, service, or even virtue, "if I… have not charity, I gain nothing" (1 Cor 13:1-4). Charity is superior to all the virtues. It is the first of the theological virtues: "So faith, hope, charity abide, these three. But the greatest of these is charity" (1 Cor 13:13). (CCC 1827) The practice of all the virtues is animated and inspired by charity, which "binds everything together in perfect harmony" (Col 3:14); it is the form of the virtues; it articulates and orders them among themselves; it is the source and the goal of their Christian practice. Charity upholds and purifies our human ability to love, and raises it to the supernatural perfection of divine love.

(The next question is: How is sexuality related to love?)