A few days ago, I wrote, “If you don’t feel pain when they hurt, you don’t love them.” Upon reflection, I have to correct that.

Depth of feeling is not the measure of love. Action is the measure of love. It is not essential that I feel anything at all when someone I love is hurt; what is essential is that I am moved to action.

When my daughter falls down and skins her knee, yes, I feel bad; but I also comfort her. When I hear of massive earthquakes in Haiti or tornadoes in Oklahoma, I might or might not feel bad; some people have a lot of empathy, and some don’t. But even if I do not feel bad, I can still love those harmed by the catastrophe. I can still choose to take action: to pray, to send aid. These actions, done for the good of the victims, constitute love. Conversely, I can feel bad, very, very bad, and tell everyone how bad I feel about the victims of the catastrophe…and not love them at all in any objective way.

Action is the measure of love.

Feelings are called emotions precisely because they move us. Feelings of hunger move us to eat. Feelings of pity move us to aid or comfort. Feelings of anger or lust all too often move us to sin. The emotions themselves are not good or bad; only the actions that result from them (or the inaction despite them) can be good or bad. (We here in America spend a lot of time consuming media that moves us inwardly but without moving us to real action. We complain or we chuckle or we sigh, but do nothing. The emotions are short-circuited, as it were. This might be a problem.)

Action is the measure of love.

But if that is so, how can we truly love God? True love drives us to action. But He is perfect, omnipotent, infinite; he needs no help or comfort from us. How can we love him?

Jesus has given us the answer. He asks us, how can we love the God we have not seen, if we do not love the neighbor we have seen?

Action is the measure of love. That action might only be a prayer, an invocation of God’s help. (Only a prayer! Hah!) It might be more than that, depending on our means and on the proximity of the neighbors in question. But action is the measure of love.