AGAPE

“It is not my nature to join in hate, but in love.” Sophocles, Antigone (523)

Agape, the purest form of love, selfless, unconditional, active and forgiving, existed even before the coming of Jesus.

There are many people, many of us, who feel they have reached a dead end, immersed in the ruling belief of external reality, chasing shadows of themselves; always wanting something better and more, they are lost in a state of dissatisfaction, forgetting what love is. What do we see if we look in the mirror? An image. And what would we like to see instead? An image.

We wanted to talk about agape, showing it through situations taken from life, but when we look around, all we can see is that our days are filled with variations of the well-known stories of Narcissus and Echo, the games of the perpetrator and the victim. According to psychologists, the presence of narcissism in our society is increasing. We pursue all kinds of dreams, some chase money, others power, respect or success. But what is really missing from our lives, our everyday lives? Agape.

Agape can be learnt; it is not an instinctive act. We may see it as confusing, but we must continue further down the road because it leads us beyond the games, to where we reach our inner selves, to where we find peace and home. It leads us to where we meet ourselves, we meet totality – and we finally arrive; here is agape.