Liking and Loving

The Greeks had a second word for love which was philia. This is the love we have for humanity. It was to be irrespective of any class, race, color, or any other distinction. Philia was not just a liking, it was a loving. Now there's a difference between the two. Liking is in the emotions, in the feelings. Loving is in the will. Because liking is in the emotions, the emotions can change, grow dull. But loving is in the will, and is therefore subject to command. Hence our Lord said: "A new commandment I give to you"--a commandment-- "Love one another as I have loved you." This is the difference between the two.    I can illustrate it by an example. I don't like chicken. Why don't I like chicken? Because when I was a boy, my father used to send us Sheen kids out to one of his farms every weekend and every summer. The tenant farmer, in order to get in good with us, would give us chicken every day except Friday. In the course of my young life, I wrung the necks of 48,632 hens. At night I don't have nightmares, I have night-hens. I have visions of headless chickens squirming in barnyard dust. So I don't like chicken. But if I go to a retreat and am given chicken, I eat it because I could love it. I don't want to hurt the person in the galley who gave it to me. This is the difference between liking and loving.