Agape | Reflections of a Lay Catholic

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Agape, Emojis, Eros, Friendship, Heart Emojis, Joy, Love, Philia, Reconciliation, Sorrow, Storge

A good friend and I often text each other about parish functions and she occasionally includes a colored heart emoji within her text. A couple months ago she responded to a text of mine and it included a blue heart emoji. I couldn’t remember ever getting any message with anything but a red heart emoji so I wondered, “why blue?” I did an internet search on what the different colored emojis mean and, whoa!, I wasn’t prepared for what I found.

The first site I went to indicated that a blue heart alluded to a desire for BDSM (bondage, discipline, sadism, masochism). I won’t even mention what the other colors signified. Then I realized I was looking at a site devoted strictly to sexual connotations. (Don’t get any ideas, we are both happily married to our own spouses!) Continuing on to two other sites, I read where blue indicates trust, confidence and loyalty. Phew, that sounded much better!

In perusing the various sites I found that each color has a general, but not universal, loosely accepted meaning. For example: Green might mean jealousy; Purple, sensitivity; Yellow, happiness; and, of course, Red universally means true love; but there are no consistently recognized conventions for each color.

Well if that’s the case, I thought, why can’t I devise an emoji color scheme for Catholics? It might catch on or at least keep my good friend out of trouble.

The heart symbol is synonymous with a feeling of love for something. In our faith, we know that love means more than just a feeling, and love takes a different form depending on the object of our love. To begin, we can fall back on the four types of love expressed by the Greeks: Eros, or Romantic love; Storge, or Familial love; Philia, or Friendship; and Agape, Unselfish love for mankind (enemies included) because they are simply children of God.

Let’s start with Eros, romantic, passionate love. No question about it, it has to be red.

The love we have for our family ought to be green. It’s fresh and fun and is always growing.

I like what others say about blue – a friend is loyal, someone in whom you have confidence, someone you can trust.

Yellow should be for Agape love – warm and caring for our fellow humans, and a love that desires the other’s good.

Orange makes me think of autumn leaves, pumpkins, and Thanksgiving. This heart should be used to express love and gratitude to someone for the gifts they bring, especially to show your gratitude for how God has worked in your life.

Purple is the color of the priest’s vestments worn during reconciliation and so this heart has to be used to express forgiveness from one person to another.

In Catholic tradition, the fourth Sunday of Lent is called Laetare Sunday, or Joyful Sunday, and rose colored vestments are worn. Thus, the pink, or rose, colored heart ought to be used to express joy.

And to wrap things up, the black heart needs to be used to express sorrow for another’s loss.

What do you think? We need some morality and consistency among Christians when using emojis. We can’t just attach any color emoji to a text or social media post without making it mean something. And, when the uninformed (the rest of the world) questions why you used a color that they think means something different, you can correct them and even use it as an opportunity to evangelize!

Share this with everyone you know. Let’s get the word out and take back the internet! Can I get an “Amen”?

(Heart Emoji Colors for Catholics was first published on the blog Reflections of a Lay Catholic)

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