God’s divine love carries and sustains human love
By Jeff Kirby
Where’s the love? In modern society, the person seems lost in his
desire and search for love. Many things seem to falsely promise and
incompletely assure us of love, and so where can we look for real love?
What do we even mean by “love”?
On Valentine’s Day we celebrate an emotional love. The day is set aside
for heartfelt sharing, hugs and kisses, chocolates and candlelight
dinners. The human person shows his or her love through various
romantic sacramentals. The soul’s emotions are ordered and expressed in
a proper way, which build up the beloved person. These are sincere and
needed acts of love in a relationship.
On Ash Wednesday we observe a sacrificial love. The traced Cross on a
person’s forehead reminds him or her of the need for discipline within
the order of love. The day is marked by abstinence from meat, fasting
from food, and the “giving up” of something for Lent. In these actions,
the person affirms his or her own weakness and fallenness. They promise
to work to order any disorder, to reform any formlessness in
themselves, and to align lower desires to higher virtues.
Many people would place these two movements of love as opposites. They
would argue for one of them, to the discredit of the other. But as
human persons, with a vocation to love and be loved, we have a nature
which seeks both.
It has become too fashionable in many circles to dismiss romantic love
or the emotions as unimportant. It’s argued that this is not “real”
love; meanwhile the person’s soul and its emotions swell and demand
attention. In secular arguments, sacrificial love is set aside
and seen as detrimental to personal growth. The person is encouraged to
give in to fallen and wayward desires.
To choose only one of these movements of love, however, would do
violence to the integrity of the human person and cause serious
repercussions within him or her. The human person needs to give and
receive both. The extremes of being a stoic without any emotions or of
being a flower child without any foundation are real and can disrupt
the person’s capacity to fully love. As persons, made in God’s image,
we are called and inclined to seek a full and authentic love.
We turn and look to God for example, lessons, and the grace to live
this life of love. It is his divine love which sustains and carries our
human love. Our love, by emotion and sacrifice, should always seek to
bring out the good in ourselves, in others, and in the world around us.
Love always seeks the best in others, which is sometimes sacrificially
hard, and others times emotionally joyful. Love desires the good
because it’s real, because it survives, because it doesn’t disappoint
and lie. It always works to edify the person and his or her talents and
gifts.
The reality of love cannot be contained in only one expression of the
human person, but extends into his many dimensions and depends upon
both the will, intellect and emotions to demonstrate itself. In this
way, the human person can be more fully alive in being loved and in
loving others.
Jeff Kirby, a seminarian with the
Diocese of Charleston, is taking a pastoral year at Prince of Peace
Church in Taylors.
Published Feb. 10, 2005
The Catholic Miscellany