“Love is of something, and that which love desires is not that which love is or has; for no man desires that which he is or has. And love is of the beautiful, and therefore has not the beautiful. And the beautiful is the good, and therefore, in wanting and desiring the beautiful, love also wants and desires the good.”

– Diotima in Plato’s “Symposium”

I recently came across this quote and it reminded me of my experience reading the “Symposium”. I particularly enjoy how, this work, “Love” or “Eros” is consistently described as a lack. We all lack something and we do not cease to desire until we find it. Love is merely the ache of that lack made plain. Human beings are born lacking and all our desire is expressed in the way we love. The world, in effect, is moved by endless desire.

Are not the most beautiful pieces of music reflective of some notion of “longing”? Listen to the Adagio in Mozart’s flute and harp concerto in C major as a simple example. In fact, the movie “Amadeus” describes Mozart’s music as “Filled with such longing, such unfulfillable longing (…)”. Such is the case with other art forms, expressions in which a human being pours out his or her soul and places it on display to others. We describe art as being “human” when we see this aspect of our humanity etched across the canvas somehow. Great art will often portray some aspect of “longing”—and for what? That is the question.

The question of who or what we long for, or what can fulfill this desire, is perhaps intimately tied to the question of the meaning of life. For what is meaning if not that which satisfies us? Aristotle will add that the universe is moved with longing for the “unmoved mover”. Within the Western tradition, answers will vary and eventually take the form of religion, and St. Augustine will make his famous statement that our hearts are restless until they rest in God. Early Christianity, drawing from the Platonic tradition, combined with the wisdom in the Hebrew Scriptures, will come to equal that which is true, good, and beautiful with God Himself.

If God is infinite and eternal, and we have already established our human condition as that of lacking something, we can assume that, following this reasoning, our heart was made with an infinite “gap” or “space”, wherein God is meant to dwell. The dignity of mankind is so great, then, because we were made with the capacity to harbor infinite Love itself.

Of course, in our God-given freedom, while we were still like unborn babes, we chose to render the umbilical cord tying us to the nurturing womb of God, as it were. So we find ourselves in a state of lacking the infinite, our innate desire for friendship with God.

To be human is to want, somewhat endlessly. And that is why, embracing the human condition with all the love of His infinite heart, our Lord, the insatiable fount of Goodness itself, is able to say, “I thirst” at the cross.

He embraces our lack more than anyone. He suffered loss so all would be filled. He wants to satiate our desire for love so fully that our cup “overflows”. That “cup” in Psalm 23 may very well be the human soul in all its wonderful capacity to love and to be loved.

Therefore, “Eros” need no longer be a lack. “Amor”, true love, will instead become the gift. It is not in seeking to fill the lack that we encounter love. Instead, paradoxically, we must become empty and divest ourselves of our desires even to a greater extent. That is what it means to love even “to the end” as St. John describes the way our Lord loved his disciples, abasing Himself in the way He washed their feet.

That is why true love is painful. “Why”, the soul asks, “must I give up myself? I am already so full of longing and desire, can I not seek to fulfill it in some way? What can I do if I am already dying, wounded with the unquencheable thirst I feel for infinite love? Should I not seek to satiate my desire in some manner, however desperate, by whatever means necessary? Should I not yearn to survive, and thus be filled?”

“No”, the Lord replies. “You must die”, and this illumines the reason for losing one’s life in order to find it. For He who was in very nature God “emptied Himself” more than anyone ever has. The utterly self-sufficient immortal Mover became that chronic “lack” we complain of. He chose to experience the wound of Eros. Never was there so fierce, so abject, so unrequited a love as on that abandoned cross.

Therefore, we can experience, in His footseps, what theologians describe as the “law of the gift”—the more you give yourself, the more you will be satisfied. The more you consciously choose to experience the lack, chase after the lack, embrace the lack, the more you will be filled. That is indeed a myserious reality. How can we be at the same time both lacking and fulfilled? Perhaps it is the same reason why Jesus’ crucifixion, an event ugly and dreadful in and of itself, was instead portrayed by the authors of the New Testament as His crowning glory. It was His enthronement as King. It was the reason He came into the world and the center of human history—and out of that great lack of love that He experienced then, we are all nourished and fed with love today, now. His lack is the source of all the superabundant graces we cherish. That is why this instrument of torture is now proudly plastered everywhere, even in beautiful jewelry that adorns the human body. How unthinkeable a reality to those in the first century—the horror of a crucifixion becoming an emblem of glory!

Should we not seek “to lack”, embrace the lack, or, in a word, “seek to desire” more and more and not to see the end of our desire? Should we not embrace that suffering as He embraced His? Will we not, paradoxically, find all that we need and be satisfied in this our search for Desire? And in doing so, will we not become, as He, a spring of goodness from which others can drink from? Is not the whole point of our sanctification to become a sacrifice as He became a sacrifice? If we are priests and He is the High Priest, then are we not too, by our infinite lack and desire united to His, then “aiding” Him in the redemption of the world? If we all become springs of goodness to others as He is, we can drown the world with goodness. Should we not seek to inundate it?

“ὁ ἐμὸς ἔρως ἐσταύρωται”, St. Ignatius of Antioch says: “My passionate love”—literally, my “Eros”—has been crucified”. Should we not seek to join Him in this sacred Passion? Should we not, thus, ease His pain, console His Heart, so brimming, boiling with love that it was utterly consumed? Can we not be consumed with Him? Is not this, then, the reordering of all our endless Desire? To behold Him, the Lover of humanity: “look to Him and be radiant”. In other words, look to Him and be beautiful, look to Him and not only be fulfilled, but be so filled you shine so bright, visibly, to all around you. There is enough light in the Son to pierce the whole universe with its rays. That is why He says He is the “light of the world”, or in Greek, the light of the “cosmos”, the entire created order. The light of all the billions of stars in our Milky Way and surrounding galaxies cannot compare to how splendidly He shines. But if you peer into the depths of His heart, you will find such a furnace of warmth and inward glow to awake everything you feel is dead within you. Has there ever been a more passionate man than Him? Is He not eager to receive your love? Is He not merely a humble beggar, just aching to be loved, truly, simply, sincerely?

Indeed, at the same time, He is also the Universe of Love. Our universe as we know it is ever expansive—so it is with God’s love, multiplying and giving itself perfectly to all, starting from the community of love present in the essence of His triunity. And see how everything around you reveals His exclusive favor. The world is good despite the fallen nature—it cannot obscure the pure Goodness from whom it sprang forth. We know the world is longing to be fully united to that Originator as a bride longs for her wedding day.

“Look to Him”, this universe of Love, in everything, at every moment, and, simply: give Him thanks. Give, and never stop giving. Out of your lack, give—For what were we given that we cannot give away? He Himself is our sole, dearest possession and even then, we must share with others the fruits of this love, this unity, as parents bring forth life out of their unitive love into the world. Out of your depths, cry out to Him, as the psalmist does in Psalm 130. Out of caverns of your emptiness, simply ask for His assistance. What wonder, what magic He works then: He takes the lack, even our lack of being, the tiredness and dissatisfaction with ourselves, he takes all of our longing, clothes His very Sef with it as our paschal victim of love, and then, He gives us a new mode of existence. He gives is His own divine Life. He gives us His Heart full of the universe’s Love.

“Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church.” Colossians 1:24