WE, of course, have to give a special day for the
celebration of
love, of human love with all its exquisite flavor of romance and
sweetness that only lovers can understand and experience. We just have
to make sure we don’t waste that precious love on mush and other worse
things.
Now that we are in the love month of February with its high point of
Valentine’s Day, we should make it a point to understand that love is
not just a human invention, a human initiative and affair, stuck in
the world of feelings and passions. It has a much greater and deeper
character that goes beyond emotions and time and space.
Love is the very essence of man, since we are the very image and
likeness of God who, we are told, is love, “Deus caritas est.” As
such, love has to be understood more in its divine origin and end,
rather than in its purely human and temporal dynamics that can go in
any which way.
It is when love is understood and lived as, first of all, a divine
initiative and pursued according to the law God has put into it, that
we avoid illusions, fantasies, and unnecessary self-inflicted
tragedies that truly deceive and degrade us. It would be a love with
true character, and not a wishy-washy type.
If only the true face of love is shown to us as early as possible and
the deviations identified and corrected promptly, I believe we would
have a much better world! Obviously, that ideal has to contend with
the realities of our human condition, mired as it is with human
frailties, ignorance, confusion, error, sin and malice.
But given the new technologies and the progress in articulating the
truth about love, over and above the traditional means of doctrine,
sacraments, and other spiritual and human means, there should be less
problem in reaching that ideal.
The difficulty, I imagine, is that the general world culture has not
yet found the connection between the theological love of God and the
human, passion-flesh-and- blood love that people experience and pursue
in their daily ordinary lives.
This love of God is still widely deemed foreign to the day-to-day
love affair people have. It’s still considered abstract, if not
irrelevant. They cannot see the connection, for example, between that
love and the romance and sex associated with human love. They don’t
know how that love plays in their concrete love affair.
It’s a pity, because the love of God actually covers the whole range
of human love, including the romance and sex parts, and goes beyond
it, elevating it to where it truly belongs.
The love of God, the source, pattern and summit of human love,
purifies and expands human love that tends to be self-centered and
enmeshed with all forms of impurities. The love of God can make human
love soar to eternity, without annulling the humanness of human love.
While there is now a growing literature about the Christian concept
of human love, this has not reached yet the media and the other
outlets where people can have easy access.
What one usually sees in these outlets are caricatures and outright
distortions of love, entangled in the grip of frivolity, triviality,
commercialism, sex, pornography, etc. We need to have more Christian
presence in these circles insofar as human love is concerned.
The more challenging task is how to bridge natural aspects of human
love with its supernatural goal, how to link prayer with human
sexuality, how to put human love in the context of the sacraments,
especially the Holy Eucharist.
A lot of theologizing has to be done yet in this department. And the
first problem is that many people still need to be convinced that all
of us actually need to develop a theological mind, that is, allowing
our reason and, yes, even our senses, to be infused and guided by the
light of faith.
The task of evangelization would not be complete without touching
this important area of human love. While it’s true that due to the
delicate character of this topic it has to dealt with a lot of
prudence and discretion, it’s also true that this issue has to be
aired out and ventilated widely. We need to find a way to do this.
Let’s hope that the media and the social networks that help. They
actually can do a lot in enriching our culture that would include a
healthy and Christian attitude toward human love and everything
involved in it.
love, of human love with all its exquisite flavor of romance and
sweetness that only lovers can understand and experience. We just have
to make sure we don’t waste that precious love on mush and other worse
things.
Now that we are in the love month of February with its high point of
Valentine’s Day, we should make it a point to understand that love is
not just a human invention, a human initiative and affair, stuck in
the world of feelings and passions. It has a much greater and deeper
character that goes beyond emotions and time and space.
Love is the very essence of man, since we are the very image and
likeness of God who, we are told, is love, “Deus caritas est.” As
such, love has to be understood more in its divine origin and end,
rather than in its purely human and temporal dynamics that can go in
any which way.
It is when love is understood and lived as, first of all, a divine
initiative and pursued according to the law God has put into it, that
we avoid illusions, fantasies, and unnecessary self-inflicted
tragedies that truly deceive and degrade us. It would be a love with
true character, and not a wishy-washy type.
If only the true face of love is shown to us as early as possible and
the deviations identified and corrected promptly, I believe we would
have a much better world! Obviously, that ideal has to contend with
the realities of our human condition, mired as it is with human
frailties, ignorance, confusion, error, sin and malice.
But given the new technologies and the progress in articulating the
truth about love, over and above the traditional means of doctrine,
sacraments, and other spiritual and human means, there should be less
problem in reaching that ideal.
The difficulty, I imagine, is that the general world culture has not
yet found the connection between the theological love of God and the
human, passion-flesh-and- blood love that people experience and pursue
in their daily ordinary lives.
This love of God is still widely deemed foreign to the day-to-day
love affair people have. It’s still considered abstract, if not
irrelevant. They cannot see the connection, for example, between that
love and the romance and sex associated with human love. They don’t
know how that love plays in their concrete love affair.
It’s a pity, because the love of God actually covers the whole range
of human love, including the romance and sex parts, and goes beyond
it, elevating it to where it truly belongs.
The love of God, the source, pattern and summit of human love,
purifies and expands human love that tends to be self-centered and
enmeshed with all forms of impurities. The love of God can make human
love soar to eternity, without annulling the humanness of human love.
While there is now a growing literature about the Christian concept
of human love, this has not reached yet the media and the other
outlets where people can have easy access.
What one usually sees in these outlets are caricatures and outright
distortions of love, entangled in the grip of frivolity, triviality,
commercialism, sex, pornography, etc. We need to have more Christian
presence in these circles insofar as human love is concerned.
The more challenging task is how to bridge natural aspects of human
love with its supernatural goal, how to link prayer with human
sexuality, how to put human love in the context of the sacraments,
especially the Holy Eucharist.
A lot of theologizing has to be done yet in this department. And the
first problem is that many people still need to be convinced that all
of us actually need to develop a theological mind, that is, allowing
our reason and, yes, even our senses, to be infused and guided by the
light of faith.
The task of evangelization would not be complete without touching
this important area of human love. While it’s true that due to the
delicate character of this topic it has to dealt with a lot of
prudence and discretion, it’s also true that this issue has to be
aired out and ventilated widely. We need to find a way to do this.
Let’s hope that the media and the social networks that help. They
actually can do a lot in enriching our culture that would include a
healthy and Christian attitude toward human love and everything
involved in it.
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