It’s not every day that a medieval theological concept enters the public discourse. But that’s what’s happened after Vice President JD Vance referred to the Latin ordo amoris (order of love) to justify the Trump administration’s immigration policy, with Pope Francis subsequently criticizing his interpretation.
Regardless, all the recent conversation about the order of love gives us an opportunity for thinking about how it applies to the moral life as we enter into Lent.
St. Augustine is the originator of this way of speaking about the importance of placing our love for different things in order, as he does in works like “The City of God” and “On Christian Doctrine.” St. Augustine taught that the whole definition of virtue, or living well, comes down to ordering love rightly. As he writes:
“Now he is a man of just and holy life who forms an unprejudiced estimate of things, and keeps his affections also under strict control, so that he neither loves what he ought not love, nor fails to love what he ought to love, nor loves that more which ought to be loved less, nor loves that equally which ought to be loved either less or more, nor loves that less or more which ought to be loved equally.”
The “strict control” St. Augustine speaks of isn’t arbitrary. Ordering our loves isn’t about denying affection for some things simply as a masochistic act of self-mortification. Instead, virtue consists in ordering our love because it is reasonable to love some things more than others.
At the top of this hierarchy must be God, the creator of all things and love itself. St. Augustine then says that we are called to love ourselves, not selfishly, but in accord with our ultimate good in God. Love of others as a reflection of our love of God follows. And the order is completed by speaking of love of the world, including its material things and temporal pleasures.
So, what does this ordo amoris have to do with Lent?
Lent is a time of giving things up and making sacrifices. But we don’t give up things — whether they be chocolate, alcohol, social media usage or watching sports — because they are inherently bad (if something is inherently bad, we should give it up altogether, not just for Lent!).
Instead, we give them up as a chance to properly reorder our love. To reset our ordo amoris, as it were.
Making sacrifices in Lent allows us to grow in detachment from the things of this world so that we can love God as he deserves to be loved. Relatedly, taking on additional practices of prayer or charity strengthens our love for both God and neighbor, which can all too easily be neglected in favor of pleasure and comfort.
As St. Augustine warns, so often sins occur “when we forget the order of things, and instead of (God,) love that which (God) has made.” Lent is a chance to renew our love for God first and foremost, and our love for everything and everyone else in light of him.
The great irony is that making these sacrifices actually helps us to love earthly things better. By growing in detachment, we can love created things as they are meant to be loved, instead of treating them like idols. It’s no coincidence that imbalanced affection for things like sugary sweets or social media (or even political outcomes) leads to all kinds of negative consequences for body and soul.
With St. Augustine, let’s focus on resetting our order of loves this Lent, placing God on top. For, as this great saint writes, “a man is never in so good a state as when his whole life is a journey towards the unchangeable life, and his affections are entirely fixed upon that.”
Liedl lives in South Bend, Indiana, and is senior editor for the National Catholic Register. He is a former longtime resident of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, alum of the University of St. Thomas’ Catholic Studies graduate program and a current student at The St. Paul Seminary and School of Divinity, both in St. Paul.
