Love is the foundation

Fuller quotation from Great Lent, by Fr Alexander Schmemann:

"Love is … the foundation, the very life of the Church which is, in the words of St Ignatius of Antioch, the ‘unity of faith and love’. … [Look at] Christ’s parable of the Last Judgement (Matt. 25:31-46). When Christ comes to judge us, what will be the criterion of His judgement? The parable answers: love – not a mere humanitarian concern for abstract justice and the anonymous ‘poor’, but concrete and personal love for the human person, any human person, that God makes me encounter in my life. … Christian love is the ‘possible impossibility’ to see Christ in another man, whoever he is, and whom God, in His eternal and mysterious plan, has decided to introduce into my life, be it only for a few moments, not as an occasion for a ‘good deed’ or and exercise in philanthropy, but as the beginning of an eternal companionship in God Himself. For indeed, what is love if not that mysterious power which transcends the accidental and the external in the ‘other’ – his physical appearance, social rank, ethnic origin, intellectual capacity –and reaches the soul, the unique and uniquely personal ‘root’ of a human being, truly the part of God in him? If God loves every man, it is because He alone knows the priceless and absolutely unique treasure, the ‘soul’ or ‘person’ He gave every man. Christian love then is the participation in that divine knowledge and the gift of that divine love. There is no ‘impersonal’ love because love is the personal and unique in the common and general. It is the discovery in each man of that which is ‘lovable’ in him, in that which is from God.

"In this respect, Christian love is sometimes the opposite of ‘social activism’ with which one so often identifies Christianity today. To a ‘social activist’ the object of love is not ‘person’ but man, an abstract unit of a not less abstract ‘humanity’. But for Christianity, man is ‘lovable’ because he is person. There person is reduced to man; here man is seen only as person. The ‘social activist’ has no interest for the personal, and easily sacrifices it to the ‘common interest’. Christianity may seem to be, and in some ways actually is, rather sceptical about that abstract ‘humanity’, but it commits a mortal sin against itself each time it gives up its concern and love for the person. Social activism is always ‘futuristic’ in is approach; it always acts in the name of justice, order, happiness to come, to be achieved. Christianity cares little about that problematic future but puts the whole emphasis on the now – the only decisive time for love. The two attitudes are not mutually exclusive, but they must not be confused. Christians, to be sure, have responsibilities toward ‘this world’ and they must fulfill them. This is the area of ‘social activism’ which belongs entirely to ‘this world’. Christian love, however, aims beyond ‘this world’. It is itself a ray, a manifestation of the Kingdom of God; it transcends and overcomes all limitations, all ‘conditions’ of this world because its motivations as well as its goals and consummation is in God. And we know that even in this world, which ‘lies in evil’, the only lasting and transforming victories are those of love. To remind man of this personal love and vocation, to fill the sinful world with this love – this is the true mission of the Church.

"The parable of the Last Judgement is about Christian love. Not all of us are called to work for ‘humanity’, yet each one of us has received the gift and the grace of Christ’s love. We know that all men ultimately need this personal love – the recognition in them of their unique soul in which the beauty of the whole creation is reflected in a unique way. We also know that men are in prison and are sick and thirsty and hungry because that personal love has been denied them. And, finally, we know that however narrow and limited the framework of our personal existence, each one of us has been made responsible for a tiny part of the Kingdom of God, made responsible by that very gift of Christ’s love. Thus, on whether or not we have accepted this responsibility, on whether we have loved or refused to love, shall we be judged. For ‘inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, you have done it unto Me…’