While at Franciscan University of Steubenville, during my first year, while enrolled in school,

we had a lecture given by a professor from St. Louis University named Eleanor Stump.

And she came and she spoke on Aquinas on the Nature of Love.

And I went in there, kind of toddled in, somewhat expectant, but kind of blithely unaware of what lay in store.

And here she went ahead and described love with a kind of clarity and precision with a depth, a profundity,

that I had never heard enunciated before.

And she gave expression to things that I had hoped to know or hoped to express,

but never had the vocabulary or grammar to adequately give vent to. And in so doing, she introduced me

to Aquinas and to the way in which St. Thomas loved the Lord that laid claim on my life in a way that has come to now.

So all my eggs being in that basket.

So I believe firmly, I believe passionately, that to think well about love effectuates in loving well.

That to think well about the Lord and about neighbor, to think well about life,

emboldens, empowers, heals, elevates in such a manner that we are thereby better equipped for the task of life.

So, this is what lies in story. I'm going to give a kind of basic description of the difference and

interconnection among loves, and in this, we'll take St. Thomas's exposition as our guide. It's

classic to describe the difference and intercollection among loves. Love, which is one we know,

comes in various and interrelated expressions. I think the language

with which we are most familiar is the language taken from the Greek. So we've heard of philia,

platonic love. We've heard of eras or erotic love. We'd heard of agape or divine love. St. Thomas has his own distinct terminology.

Writing in Latin, he speaks of Amor, which should be familiar to us who know romance languages,

then of Delexio, then of Amiciya, and of Caritas.

What we'll do is consider St. Thomas' exposition and terminology,

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