Passion

Love is passionate, respectful, vulnerable, and faithful involvement.

“Passion” is the fourth component of the operational definition of love that I have been promoting. Fr. John Joe Lakers, who gave me these thoughts, argued that passion should come first in the list.

It took me a long time to get past thinking that the word “passion” means romantic love. But romantic love is just one kind of love.

Romantic love is beautiful but temporary. It is usually followed by disillusionment, and it cannot keep a relationship alive for the long haul. The word “passion” can point to a much deeper and longer lasting form of love.

Dorothy Day began what she called a “house of hospitality” in New York City in the 1930’s. She deliberately chose to locate it in a slum area of the city, an area characterized by homeless people, drugs, and crime. Her basic rule was to welcome anybody into the house, let them eat there and stay as long as they needed to. When she quoted the Russian novelist Dostoyevski, “Love is a harsh and dreadful thing,” she was surely thinking of what it costs to live so vulnerable to suffering people. But her way of living was a fruitful form of love. Today there are over 180 “Catholic Worker” houses around the world, all following the pattern she set in New York City. Her vision had staying power.

But passion is not limited to such a dramatic way of life. Passion is what causes people to practice a musical instrument many hours a day for years on end. Passion is why people welcome a severely disabled infant into their family and create a life of love around the child.

Passion is a gift. We do not buy it or manufacture it or control it. Passion is “passive.” We get passion from other people. I would say we get it from God, through other people.

We choose to be respectful, vulnerable, and faithful in our involvement with others. We do not choose passion. Something or someone else gives it to us.

Because love requires passion, love, then, is a gift. 

 

[published in Muddy River News, 4/12/2026]