What Love’s Got to Do With It

We initiated August’s Friday Features, themed to the topic “Love, Marriage, Chastity” with some thoughts of our own.

Each of us, in his/her life, has loved a multitude of things, a multitude of times, in a multitude of ways. We’ve loved everything from the color of robin’s eggs to the lullaby of ocean waves; from the scent of roses to the elegance of a Chanel jacket or a Lamborghini; from the cradling of an easy chair to the taste of chocolate.

There a limitation, though, to this kind of love—not one of these things is sentient. Not one of them is capable of loving us in return. We’ve also loved pet animals, baby elephants, swift horses, bunnies—and there’s at least one of us who is known to entertain a special fondness for capybaras.  Beings like this can “love” us in return, can respond to us, can demonstrate considerable allegiance to us. They can even grieve when separated from us. What they can’t do is achieve a deep understanding of us. The absence of mutual understanding of like for like is the reason Adam was lonely in Eden even amidst an abundance of living, growing beings over which he had authority and for which, we can imagine, he may well have had appreciation and even affection. It’s the reason God created another human being to accompany Adam in his life’s journey.

In our own lives, we’ve loved many people.  We’ve loved our parents and our older relatives, our siblings, and our cousins. We’ve loved friends and neighbors. We may
have fallen in and out of romantic love with a number of sweethearts before deciding on the one among them whom we’d marry. After marriage, we may have been granted children and grandchildren, and loved them as well. In this kind of love—the love of one human being for another—there’s a common thread that runs through the various relationships.

In this kind of love, provided it’s genuine, we dedicate ourselves to working for the good of the loved one. Because Christ articulated and exemplified this kind of love, we can, for simplicity’s sake, call it “Christian love.”

A stroll through the lengthy history of humankind, however, will remind us that such love is by no means the exclusive property of Christians.

The work of Divine Mercy Care (in particular, its support of the work of Tepeyac OB/GYN) strives to demonstrate this kind of selfless love. We insist on
offering nothing less than care that leads to true health, that respects and tends the entire person, that is inclusive of the poor, the broken, and the stranger in our midst, and that is provided as a result of  considerable personal sacrifice.

It’s the truest kind of love we know, and we lay it on the line every day. Why? So that others may have life, and have it more
abundantly.

 

FRIDAY FEATURES LINKS

How is chastity lived out within marriage?
https://bit.ly/2NpNx9G

Selfless love, happy marriage among the fruits of chastity
https://bit.ly/2oXHo6V

Godtalk: Chastity Is About Love
https://bit.ly/2NnHAdp

Chastity Project
https://bit.ly/2NnHAdp

Love, Marriage, and Chastity – Friday
Features, Divine Mercy Care
https://bit.ly/2Qf8iDl