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Eros and Agape: The Greek Origins of Christian Love, by Russell M. Lawson – Brown Pelican Society of Lousiana

Eros and Agape: The Greek Origins of Christian Love, by Russell M. Lawson

Mary’s Maternal Love: Catholic Moms Share Their Favorite Marian Devotions, by Joseph Pronechen 
May 11, 2026
Welcome to the New World Order? by Peter Van Buren
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John Roddam Spencer Stanhope - Love and the Maiden, (1829–1908). This is a faithful photographic reproduction of a two-dimensional, public domain work of art. The work of art itself is in the public domain ... Image from Wikimedia Commons

By Russell M. Lawson, Catholic Exchange, May 11, 2026

Russell M. Lawson is the author of almost two dozen books and many more articles and essays. He has taught at schools in New England, Oklahoma, and Ontario. Dr. Lawson teaches and writes on scientists, explorers, and missionaries; the history of America, Europe, and the world; and the history of ideas, particularly Christian ideas.

Editor’s Note: This is the first article of a new CE original series on the History of Love, pursuing the meaning of love and our understanding of it throughout time.

 

cropped-russell-lawson-1In his first encyclical, Pope Benedict XVI looked over the course of his life, beginning before World War II, throughout which he witnessed firsthand the propensity of human beings to hate, interspersed with episodes of what the world called “love.” Love, he reflected, “has become one of the most frequently used and misused of words, a word to which we attach quite different meanings.” The misuse of love is the possessiveness that it entails, as humans seek material items, ideological and institutional icons to love, and to satisfy lust with other humans.

Benedict, however, saw that what was essential to understand was “the love which God mysteriously and gratuitously offers to man, together with the intrinsic link between that Love and the reality of human love.” Following upon and guided by Benedict’s Deus Caritus Est, I seek in the coming weeks to uncover the meaning of love throughout time, especially as it relates to Catholicism. …

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