Books like The Mystery of Love by Basil Cardinal Hume

Erich Fromm examines love as a practiced art rather than a simple feeling, distinguishing types such as brotherly, motherly, erotic, self‑love, and love of God, and urging genuine care amid modern superficiality.

C.S. Lewis explores the four distinct loves—friendship, eros, charity, and self-love—in a thoughtful analysis rooted in Christian theology.

In the words of the author: "My main purpose is to offer as definite and clear an idea as possible of the meaning, function and end of passion, and then convince the reader to go ahead and live passionately. There is an absolutely indispensable need for followers of Christ to become progressively conscious of human growth that is as thoroughly erotic and sexual as it is spiritual." The author breaks through the limits of literary romanticisms and the "pretty poisons" of superficiality which are such a great part of the past and present world. He brings us through a "Desert experience" and into the liberating life of mystical love. St. Paul, Elizabeth of Hungary, Joan of Arc and Thérèse of Lisieux exemplify for the author "the passion of God meeting and evoking the passion of man in compassion...and through which the hard crust of the world is broke open." A book for everyone who seeks to go beyond the exhausted powers of eros and be lifted by the inexhaustible spirit into agape. [Back cover].

"Contemplation is not just looking at God; for most of us, now in via, it consists in looking for God, and if from time to time some 'sight' of him is accorded, this will only be a glimmer granted by grace in what will always be a 'cloud of unknowing'. So when I use the term 'contemplation' I use it in this sense: looking for God. This looking for God is done through, with, and in Christ, in unity with the Holy Spirit so that we can give, within that very life of the Trinity, all honour and glory to God, the Almighty Father. That in brief is, I think, the essence of the monastic life." Cardinal Basil Hume OSB