Week 1: The Basics of Love
Definitions:
• Eros- physical attraction
• Phileo- preference, how you feel
• Agape- sacrificial, how you can meet another’s needs
• Storge- affection naturally occurring between family members
John 21:15-19
When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you
love me sacrificially (agape)?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you as a
friend (phileo).” He said to him, “Feed my lambs.”
He then said to him a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me sacrificially
(agape)?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord, you know that love you as a friend (phileo).” He
said to him, “Tend my sheep.”
He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me like a friend
(phileo)?” Peter was distressed that he had said to him a third time, “Do you love me
(phileo)?” and he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you like
a friend (phileo).” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.”
“Amen, amen, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to dress yourself and go
where you wanted; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone
else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.”
He said this signifying by what kind of death he would glorify God. And when he had
said this, he said to him, “Follow me.”
• Why would Peter respond with phileo?
• Why does Jesus repeat the question three times?
• What is your response to, “Do you love me sacrificially?”
• How do you show it?
• Is it important for physicians to demonstrate agape love? To whom? How is it manifest?
Week 2: What’s my Motivation?
• Why do you want to be a doctor?
• Why do you want to help people?
• Is it because of the promise of the reward you’ll get?
• Or fear of what will happen to you if you don’t?
• Or maybe it isn’t about you at all.
1 John 4:7-21
Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten
by God and knows God. Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love. In
this way the love of God was revealed to us: God sent his only Son into the world so that
we might have life through him. In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he
loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins.
Beloved, if God so loved us, we also must love one another. No one has ever seen God.
Yet, if we love one another, God remains in us, and his love is brought to perfection in
us. This is how we know that we remain in him and he in us, that he has given us of his
Spirit. Moreover, we have seen and testify that the Father sent his Son as savior of the
world. Whoever acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him and he
in God. We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us. God is love,
and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him.
In this is love brought to perfection among us, that we have confidence on the day of
judgment because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect
love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment, and so one who fears is not
yet perfect in love.
We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” but hates his brother, he
is a liar; for whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom
he has not seen. This is the commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must
also love his brother.
• What motivation does this passage give for love?
• How will that affect your practice?
• How do we maintain that motivation?
Quotes from Deus Caritas Est:
“I wish. . . to speak of the love God lavishes upon us and which we in turn must share
with others.”
“He loves us, he makes us see and experience his love, and since he has ‘loved us first’,
love can also blossom as a response within us.”
“God’s will is no longer for me an alien will, something imposed on me from without by
the commandments, but it is now my own will, based on the realization that God is in fact
more deeply present to me than I am to myself.”
“Anyone who wishes to give love must also receive love as a gift. Certainly, as the Lord
tells us, one can become a source from which rivers of living water flow. Yet to become
such a source, one must constantly drink anew from the original source, which is Jesus
Christ, from whose pierced heart flows the love of God.”
Week 3: Dig Deep! The Roots of Agape Love
1 Timothy 1:1-7
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by command of God our savior and of Christ Jesus our
hope, to Timothy, my true child in faith: grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father
and Christ Jesus our Lord. I repeat the request I made of you when I was on my way to
Macedonia, that you stay in Ephesus to instruct certain people not to teach false doctrines
or to concern themselves with myths and endless genealogies, which promote
speculations rather than the plan of God that is to be received by faith.
The aim of this instruction is love from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere
faith. Some people have deviated from these and turned to meaningless talk, wanting to
be teachers of the law, but without understanding either what they are saying or what they
assert with such assurance.
• Where does Paul assert that love develops from?
• What is the risk of saying we are sharing God’s love if we are not rooted in a pure
heart, good conscience, and a sincere faith?
Pure heart
2 Cor 11:3-4
But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts may be
corrupted from a sincere (and pure) commitment to Christ. For if someone comes and
preaches another Jesus than the one we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from
the one you received or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it
well enough.
• In this warning about being led astray, what strikes you?
• What do we “put up with” in the med school?
• How does one maintain a pure heart?
A good conscience
Romans 2:15-16
They show that the demands of the law are written in their hearts, 6 while their
conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even defend them
on the day when, according to my gospel, God will judge people’s hidden works through
Christ Jesus.
• How do you form a healthy conscience?
• What does our medical school say about conscience?
• How can you be used as a voice of truth?
A sincere faith
1 Peter 1:22
Since you have purified yourselves by obedience to the truth for sincere mutual love, love
one another intensely from a pure heart.
• How is a sincere faith revealed?
• What is the difference between walking in accordance with one’s sincerity and
walking in accordance with a healthy conscience?
A quote to ponder:
“Intensity of one’s love is often a function of one’s humility. Many who start the
Christian life are characteristically intense in their love. But such love can grow cold with
pride as one becomes more ‘established’, seeking recognition or an institutional title, or
just through pressures to conform to the social status which drives much of the secular
society away from God.”
Week 4: You Want me to Love Who?!
Luke 10:25-37
There was a scholar of the law who stood up to test him and said, “Teacher, what must I
do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said to him, “What is written in the law? How do you
read it?” He said in reply, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with
all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as
yourself.” He replied to him, “You have answered correctly; do this and you will live.”
But because he wished to justify himself, he said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
Jesus replied, “A man fell victim to robbers as he went down from Jerusalem to Jericho.
They stripped and beat him and went off leaving him half-dead. A priest happened to be
going down that road, but when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side. Likewise
a Levite came to the place, and when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side. But
a Samaritan traveler who came upon him was moved with compassion at the sight. He
approached the victim, poured oil and wine over his wounds and bandaged them. Then he
lifted him up on his own animal, took him to an inn and cared for him. The next day he
took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper with the instruction, “Take care
of him. If you spend more than what I have given you, I shall repay you on my way
back.”
Which of these three, in your opinion, was neighbor to the robbers’ victim?” He
answered, “The one who treated him with mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do
likewise.”
• What type of love did he show?
• Is it important to show phileo love to everyone?
• Is it important to show phileo love to patients? How about agape love?
• What does that look like in your studies? On the wards?
• What excuses do we make for failing to love our neighbor?
Matthew 5:43-48
You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But
I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be
children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and
causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what
recompense will you have? Do not the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your
brothers only, what is unusual about that? Do not the pagans do the same? So be perfect,
just as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Romans 12:18-21
If possible, on your part, live at peace with all. Beloved, do not look for revenge but leave
room for the wrath; for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”
Rather, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink;
for by so doing you will heap burning coals upon his head.” Do not be conquered by evil
but conquer evil with good.
• Why these Bible stories?
• Who are your enemies?
• Who must we love? How?
Week 5: The Greatest of these is Love
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
If I speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or
a clashing cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and
all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am
nothing. If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast
but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, it is not pompous, it is not inflated,
It is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood
over injury,
It does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth.
It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never
fails. If there are prophecies, they will be brought to nothing; if tongues, they will cease;
if knowledge, it will be brought to nothing. For we know partially and we prophesy
partially, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I
used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I put
aside childish things. At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face.
At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known. So faith, hope,
love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
Verses 1-3
• Comments?
• What does it say about the value of grades, an M.D., a good residency. . .?
Verse 4
• What word comes to mind?
• What example has God given us of humility?
&bulbull; How is humility related to humiliation? How about low self image?
Verse 5
• Which is hardest to avoid?
• When are Christian’s characterized as rude? How do you avoid that?
• What do you call med school if not self-seeking?
Verse 6
• What does that mean for how you behave in clinic?
• Can you use love as an explanation for doing what is right?
Verses 7-13
• What does this say about the longevity of love?
• How do we develop that lasting love for our patients and colleagues?
A quote to ponder:
“Nothing is more practical than finding God, i.e. than falling in love in a quite absolute,
final way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect
everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you will do
with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what
breaks your heart, and what amazes you to joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love,
and it will decide everything.” –Fr. Pedro Arrupe, S.J., General of the Society of Jesus
Week 6: “As I Have Loved You”- Putting Love into Action
John 15:1-21
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower. He takes away every branch in me
that does not bear fruit, and everyone that does he prunes so that it bears more fruit. You
are already pruned because of the word that I spoke to you.
Remain in me, as I remain in you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it
remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me. I am the vine, you are
the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without
me you can do nothing. Anyone who does not remain in me will be thrown out like a
branch and wither; people will gather them and throw them into a fire and they will be
burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask for whatever you want and
it will be done for you.
By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples. As the
Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments,
you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in
his love.
I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete. This is
my commandment: love one another as I love you.
No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my
friends if you do what I command you. I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does
not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you
everything I have heard from my Father.
It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit
that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you. This I
command you: love one another.
If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, the
world would love its own; but because you do not belong to the world, and I have chosen
you out of the world, the world hates you. Remember the word I spoke to you, ‘No slave
is greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they
kept my word, they will also keep yours. And they will do all these things to you on
account of my name, because they do not know the one who sent me.”
Quotes from Deus Caritas Est:
“Love of God and love of neighbor are now truly united: God incarnate draws us all to
himself. We can thus understand how agape also became a term for the Eucharist: there
God’s own agape comes to us bodily, in order to continue his work in us and through us.
Only by keeping in mind this Christological and sacramental basis can we correctly
understand Jesus’ teaching on love. The transition which he makes from the Law and the
Prophets to the twofold commandment of love of God and of neighbor, and his grounding
the whole life of faith on this central precept, is not simply a matter of morality—
something that could exist apart from and alongside faith in Christ and its sacramental reactualization.
Faith, worship and ethos are interwoven as a single reality, which takes
shape in our encounter with God’s agape. Here the usual contraposition between worship
and ethics simply falls apart. ‘Worship’ itself, Eucharistic communion, includes the
reality both of being loved and of loving others in turn. A Eucharist which does not pass
over into the concrete practice of love is intrinsically fragmented. Conversely, as we shall
have to consider in greater detail below, the ‘commandment’ of love is only possible
because it is more than a requirement. Love can be ‘commanded’ because it has first
been given.”
