A Note From Our Pastor: August 16, 2026

While in English we have the word love, and in Spanish, amor and querer, in Greek there are four different words. Better said, it’s love that takes four distinct forms: eros, philia, storge and agape. I’m compelled to say more about love as we commonly understand (or misunderstand) it. In our culture (though I don’t believe it’s unique to ours) the concept of love and sex are almost made to seem as though they are synonymous. We see this in the terms “having sex” and “making love”. Though there is an association between them, sex and love are not the same thing.

To be sure, we are all sexual beings, whether young, old, single, celibate, or sexual orientation. Our sexuality is manifest in our bodily identity, according to our gender, as well as our innate sexual desires. We are sexual beings, even when we aren’t engaging in sexual acts.

Furthermore, everybody needs to receive love, to know they’re loved. Unfortunately, it too often leads to confusion, wherein a person believes that they will be loved if they are willing to have sex. What tends to happen, rather than one person actually expressing love for another, this simply results in one person using another—even if presented in ‘love’ language. And from that, for the one who is used, comes no real sense of security that comes with truly being loved, no sense of true identity that comes with being loved for who one is, rather than what one is willing to do.

Perhaps you’ve heard it said that while we use things, we’re called to love people. Odd as it might sound, it’s possible to use someone for our sexual benefit, even in the context of marriage—one’s spouse. Love, when understood as self-giving, avoids using the other.

I think of it this way: when we lust for someone, in our heart and mind, God (the creator) and the person who is the target of our lust (God’s created being), are not integrated into one another. We lose sense of God’s connection to that person. To control our lust, in our heart and mind, we must seek to re-integrate the Creator and His created being, to restore that person’s rightful and true identity.

To do this, in the moments we experience lust for someone, the inclination to use them, I recommend praying for them. The prayer I often recommend is this: “God, may she (or he) know how much you love her (him), your beloved daughter (son), and may I see her (him) that way”. When Creator and His created being are integrated, we avoid seeing them as objects for our desires. We may use things, but we are called to love people.

Yours in Christ,

Father Todd O. Strange