Understanding and Love

Understanding and Love. One, a gift of the Holy Spirit. The other, the gift of the Holy Spirit, the one from which all others flow. In this light, they seem so interconnected as to be inseparable. In normal context, though, they seem too diverse to be related. I insist that the first is true - that love and understand are so tightly-bound that they cannot exist without the other. Nobody can love without understanding and, more importantly, no one can understand without loving.

Virtually every Confirmandi is required to learn the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. With my class, we were threatened with a pop quiz at the hands of Bishop Bradley. The only thing more terrifying to an eighth grader than acne and girls was making a fool of himself in front of his entire family and a high-level clergyman. 

Understanding is obviously a very important gift, but a cursory glance at the list betrays a feeling many of us shared - what's the difference between understanding and knowledge? Or understanding and wisdom? Or even understanding and right judgment? Does the Holy Spirit really need four gifts for a seemingly identical duty? Yes.

Understanding, at least in a spiritual sense, is a singularly unique gift in that it surpasses factual knowledge...it surpasses even the very aspects of its subject. Understanding is a deep, intrinsic knowledge of the very essence of something. 

One can "know" art without "understanding" it. An art historian can know every brushstroke of a painting, every moment of the painters life, every influence of his career...and still not understand the painting. Understanding is transcending. Understanding is moving beyond the visible details and into something much deeper. Duc in altum - "putting out into the deep". Understanding means "putting out into the deep" to discover what something is. If that is how it applies to art, "how much more" (Romans 5) will it apply to humans, who are "in the image of God" (Genesis 1: 26)?

It's worth "going deeper" here as well - what is "the image of God"? Obviously we aren't all walking around with flowing robes and flowing-er beards. The truth is much deeper. 

We know from the First Letter of John that "God is Love" (1 John 4:8). Therefore, we are made in the image of Love. 

This isn't just making random connections - The first words of John's gospel make a clear and intentional link between the gospel and Genesis ("In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth..." vs John's "In the beginning was the Word")

John makes it abundantly clear - We are made in the image of Love, and we are made for Love. 

What is the better compliment? I love you, or I understand you. Sometimes they are one and the same. 

So the next time you want to understand, remember love. Know their essence, love their essence.

"God is Love"