Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, onetime playboy and Zoroastrian, certainly Neoplatonist, theologian, and finally Church Father, said this: “In order for us to understand the character of people, we have only to observe what they love.” * Francis de Sales, onetime target of assassins because of his evangelism in Calvinist territory, mystic author, priest and provost, eventual Bishop of Geneva, said this, “We cannot help conforming ourselves to what we love.”
“Wow!” I said to myself when I saw both quotations. How insightful! Take the latter quotation and apply it as you wish, but recognize how it applies to people in your circle of friends and acquaintances. “Conforming ourselves to what we love” can fit almost any modern circumstance and lifestyle, any person or group. It can fit anyone from Goth to Golfer, black leather to pastel khakis.
Want to know someone? Want to know yourself? What’s the object of love? Is it a process, form, group, person, or way of thinking or of expressing oneself?
Let’s put the two statements together: In order for us to understand the character of people, we have only to observe what they love. We cannot help conforming ourselves to what we love. What do you love? How has what you loved changed you? Time for self-examination.
*I owe a debt to Father Tim who found both Augustine’s and de Sales’s statements and put them in a church bulletin message on the significance of love. Those disinclined to hear statements from religious leaders might with an open mind consider that both statements have merit outside the traditional “love of God” and “love of others” message.
“Wow!” I said to myself when I saw both quotations. How insightful! Take the latter quotation and apply it as you wish, but recognize how it applies to people in your circle of friends and acquaintances. “Conforming ourselves to what we love” can fit almost any modern circumstance and lifestyle, any person or group. It can fit anyone from Goth to Golfer, black leather to pastel khakis.
Want to know someone? Want to know yourself? What’s the object of love? Is it a process, form, group, person, or way of thinking or of expressing oneself?
Let’s put the two statements together: In order for us to understand the character of people, we have only to observe what they love. We cannot help conforming ourselves to what we love. What do you love? How has what you loved changed you? Time for self-examination.
*I owe a debt to Father Tim who found both Augustine’s and de Sales’s statements and put them in a church bulletin message on the significance of love. Those disinclined to hear statements from religious leaders might with an open mind consider that both statements have merit outside the traditional “love of God” and “love of others” message.
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