What Is Love?

Patrick is a Catholic teacher with one animating question: What is love? He came to Christ in 1988 as a young Catholic at an Emmaus retreat in Panama — and at 19 years old, immediately began teaching other young people what he had just received. That instinct has never left him.

From 2000 to 2020 he worshipped and served in the Methodist Church before reverting to the Catholic Church in 2021. That journey — across traditions, through Scripture, and into how love actually works as a husband and father of six children — has been the primary force driving him to search deeply for what is actually true.

To stand before others in a place of teaching authority is to be compelled to ensure that what you proclaim is actually true. This site is his attempt to pass on what he has received from God and his Church: essays, catechesis notes, and chapters in progress toward his forthcoming book, What Is Love?

He serves as lead OCIA catechist at St. John Paul II University Parish in Denton, Texas, under the pastoral authority of Fr. Jose Francis, TOR, with a particular focus on God's love, salvation, and what it means to live as a deeply devoted Christian.

Patrick Steil
patrick@steil.org