LOVE IS THE ESSENCE AND VOCATION OF THE HUMAN HEART
Mother Adela,
SCTJM
Foundress
For private use only -©
Talk given by Mother Adela to married couples of the
Legatus Organization
THE HUMAN PERSON IS MADE TO LOVE AND BE LOVED
In
the Apostolic Exhortation, On the Role of the Christian Family in
the Modern World (Familiaris Consortio), Servant of God John
Paul II stated, “God created man in His own image and likeness:
calling him to existence through love, He called him at the same
time for love. God is love and in Himself He lives a mystery of
personal loving communion. Creating the human race in His own image
and continually keeping it in being, God inscribed in the humanity
of man and woman the vocation, and thus the capacity and
responsibility, of love and communion. Love is therefore the
fundamental and innate vocation of every human being” (no.11).
In
his book Love and Responsibility, Karol Wojtyla reminded us
of a truth so much forgotten in our times, a truth that reveals the
essence of our identity and vocation: “Love is exclusively the
portion of human persons” (p. 28). Love is an exclusive reality of
the human heart. We were created out of love, and we were created
to know love, to live by love, and to communicate it in such a
powerful way that it will give life. Just as Saint Maximilian Kolbe
always said, “Only love creates.”
Love
is an exclusive experience of the human person. Of all creation,
only the human heart can know love, live by love, and give it
generously. Animals, trees, stones, mountains, and oceans are
incapable of loving…only persons, only hearts can love. We are
capable of love because we are capable of God; we are capable of
freely choosing to live according to our dignity as the image and
likeness of God. As St. John tells us in chapter four of his first
letter, verses 7-8: “Beloved, let us love one another, because love
is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God.
Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love.”
As
human persons, we have been endowed with the gifts of intelligence
and will. We can, with our reason open to the light of faith,
understand how wide, how long, and how deep God’s love is. We can
come to know and believe in the love that God has for us. We can
come to know that His love is the source of our lives and the force
that moves us to respond to love by loving. By the gift of our
wills, we can choose to freely love and to freely live according to
our dignity as human persons. The greatest dignity of the human
heart is its capacity to freely choose to love. It is your dignity
to have been able to choose your husband and your wife and to have
chosen because you loved him or her. It is your dignity to continue
to choose daily to foster, guard, and nourish the love, the
treasure, that was entrusted to you the day you gave your fiat to
each other. It is your dignity and responsibility to protect this
love from all the interior or exterior forces that oppose and weaken
love.
Yes,
my brothers and sisters, since only human beings are capable of
love, then we are also responsible for allowing love to conquer in
our hearts when selfishness invites us to choose the wide path or to
run away from the difficulties or the duties that love requires. You
have the responsibility to form your hearts for love, to live your
marriage in love, to create in your homes living schools of love,
and to influence society by building in your own families a
civilization of love. In a few words, we are responsible for living
out our vocation – that is, to live for love, and to shape our
hearts, marriages, families, communities and society for love. You,
together with your spouse and your children, are responsible for
being witnesses in the heart of the world of a new civilization of
love. Just as John Paul II in his Letter to Families stated:
“the family is the center and the heart of the civilization of love”
(13).
LOVE IS MEANT TO BE LIVED IN
COMMUNION
In the Apostolic Exhortation
Familiaris Consortio (no.18), John Paul II, cites a passage from
his first encyclical Redemptor Hominis (no. 10): “Man cannot
live without love. He remains a being that is incomprehensible for
himself, his life is senseless, if love is not revealed to him, if
he does not encounter
love, if he does not experience it and make it his
own, if he does not participate intimately in it.”
The
human heart was created to love and, therefore, needs to live this
vocation in communion with other hearts. John Paul II spoke movingly
of the human person’s “existential loneliness,” based on the passage
Genesis 2:18: “it is not good that man should be alone.” Adam was
the first human person and the only one in creation who could love;
this is why the Creator saw that he needed another human heart to
give his love to and to relate to him in love. Love is meant to be
given and love is meant to be received. Therefore, a communion of
hearts is necessary to live out the human vocation to love.
In that same chapter from Genesis,
we can see the deep joy and the satisfied longing of Adam’s heart
expressed in the words that he said upon seeing Eve: “This one, at
last, is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh” (2:23).
We
are made to give ourselves to another and to receive another; our
very physiological make-up demonstrates this. And this mutual giving
and receiving is to be fruitful by bring forth new life. Thus we are
all, in the depths of our being, hearts that require a spouse and
children for the fulfillment of our being and vocation – whether
that spouse be of the natural order and the children be biological
children; or the spouse be Christ’s, as in the case of religious
sisters; or the spouse be the Church, the Bride of Christ, as in the
priestly vocation; in the two latter instances one’s fatherhood or
motherhood is a spiritual one.
Since love is the
driving force of human hearts, we can conclude that love unifies
persons… love forms communion of hearts. Because the only adequate
response toward a human person is love, and the only way to live the
vocation of love is in communion with persons, we can only come to
fully realize ourselves and discover our identity by giving
ourselves to one another in love. This is what John Paul II called
the “law of the gift”: we become fully ourselves by our self-giving;
he who loses his life will find it (cf. Mt. 10:39; 16:25). The
realization of the human heart is in loving and in allowing one’s
heart to have the rhythm and the movement of love. Love has only one
movement: outward. Love can only do one thing: give itself. This
reminds me of what the Heart of Jesus told St. Margaret Mary in his
first apparition to this Visitation nun: “I cannot contain my love,
I must give it.”
Love
is to be given; only then can it really be called love. “No one has
greater love than this, to lay down his life for his friend” (John
15:13). The human heart accomplishes maturity by choosing to give
itself in love. “This self gift reveals…a particular characteristic
of the essence of the person. When God said: ‘it is not good that
man should be alone’ (Gen 2:18), He affirmed that ‘alone,’ man does
not completely realize this
essence. He realizes it only by existing ‘with someone’ – and even
more deeply and completely – by existing for someone” (John Paul II,
General Audience, January 9, 1980).
LOVE MUST BE FORMED
IN THE SCHOOL OF LOVE: THE FAMILY.
In
his Letter to Families (1994), John Paul II reminded us that
the family is the community on which society is founded and that it
is by nature linked to the civilization of love.
The
civilization of love is distinguished by personalism, which moves
the person to become a gift for others and to discover joy in the
giving of himself. I sincerely believe that this civilization can
only be built upon mature hearts, by a mature humanity, which finds
full realization in the unreserved giving of oneself, in the
generous and total donation of oneself. For John Paul, this
civilization of love, of which the Christian family must be the
microcosm, is a counterbalance to the “culture of death and
selfishness” so present in our times. The Christian family is called
to be the first and most luminous witness to this new civilization
of love at the beginning of the Third Millennium.
The
human person finds his or her fulfillment only through the love that
is best illustrated through familial relationships. John Paul II
consistently tells us that for this reason Christ came into the
world through means of a family – to show us that this is where love
starts. And if love starts in the family, then the family becomes
the first school of love – the place, the environment, and the
context in which each member can be formed in and also practice the
ways of love.
Marriage and family are a school – where persons learn to love and
where their hearts can be shaped for love. The family is a school,
in the profoundly formative sense, for all members of the family;
and true formation must change hearts.
In
marriage, learning takes place is in the midst of busyness,
caretaking, and the noise and routine of daily life with its
changing patterns and realities. The couple has many opportunities
to grow in all the virtues: patience, kindness, self-denial, sharing
of common goods, compassion, forgiving and being forgiven, humility
and meekness, the capacity to welcome and to generously let go, the
cultivation of a flexible and discerning heart, the ability to work
toward reconciliation, the art of expanding circles of care, and the
capacity to listen to one another’s needs… All of these are part of
the art of love.
Indeed, the marriage relationship is most emphatically a school in
the sense of being an environment in which the art of love is
learned. But in a school we not only learn about things, we
learn to do them. The family is a school where love is to be
put into action, the material learned is to be practiced…it is the
school where love is to be known, recognized and clearly perceived.
EDUCATION FOR LOVE
An
important part of this task is educating the children for love:
teaching them to care for others, to share, to know love as
self-giving according to the Gospel of Christ. Children have to be
taught the primacy of love, the values of self-sacrifice and of
seeking the common good. The best school for this is a family where
parents put this into practice. The children need to learn to revere
and welcome new life and to see the joy of openness to life.
Children need to see discipline as formation, to be helped so as to
become self-disciplined. This must be learned from parents who give
example of moderation in all areas, parents who place their
priorities in the values of their heart. Children must become tender
and compassionate towards others, and that is so easy to imitate
when they see parents who cherish each other, who communicate with
each other, who share their lives as “one flesh,” and as “one
heart.” Children are to be educated in purity, in pure love… in
real, concrete, strong, and pure ways of showing affection. This
education for love will form mature and stable personalities,
virtuous hearts, loving hearts. Children need to be formed in the
“school of the virtues”; therefore, virtues need to be taught,
honored and practically lived in the family.
LOVE MUST BE PUT TO THE TEST AND LOVE MUST CONQUER
“Set
me as a seal on your heart, as a seal on your arm; For stern as
death is love, relentless as the nether world is devotion; its
flames are a blazing fire. Deep waters cannot quench love, nor
floods sweep it away” (Song of Songs 8:6-7). Love is stronger than
death.
Love
must be put to the test to prove its authenticity. Love must go
through the force of winds to prove the strength of its roots. There
are many good things that are part of relationships: physical
attraction, desire for company, idealized affection, common
interests, etc. All of these are good and necessary, but are not the
rock upon which a committed love can be based. Love must be based on
fidelity, and fidelity is revealed and matured at the foot of the
Cross.
-
Love is a daily conquest. Love is a daily task. Love is a
constant choice. Genuine and solid love, authentic love, is
never achieved at once. It grows, it matures, it develops by
being chosen at all times, and it obtains a particular strength
and vigor when it is more difficult to choose it. “Love is never
something ready made, something merely ‘given’ to man and woman,
it is always at the same time a ‘task’ which they are set. Love
should be seen as something which in a sense never ‘is’ but is
always only ‘becoming’, and what it becomes depends upon the
contribution of both persons and the depth of their commitment”
(Karol Wojtyla, Love and Responsibility, p. 139).
Love is put to test when the fire
and passion of the beginning seem to have lost some strength,
when the sensual and emotional reactions themselves have grown
weaker, and when sexual attraction as such has lost some of its
effect. That is the time when the inner force of love can become
stronger; it is the time when the value of the person and the
totality of the heart of the other becomes so visible, so
tangible, because the outer self begins wasting away and the
inner self is being renewed (2 Cor 4:16). This is the time when
the heart of the other is contemplated in a new dimension and
from a new angle and when the attention, values, and beauty of
the other person’s heart become a primary value, become the
reason for love, and become its choice.
I have been honored by the Lord to have in our spiritual family
a couple who is a witness to this kind of love. Gonzalo and
Maira were engaged to be married when Gonzalo had an accident by
which he became a paraplegic. When he realized he was paralyzed,
he spoke to Maira to release her from her commitment. Maira
asked Gonzalo, “Is your heart the same, or has it changed with
the accident?” Gonzalo responded to that question by saying that
his heart was not only the same but it had learned the value of
love and life. Then Maira told him, “I did not fall in love with
your body but with your heart.” That choice of love has
continued for over 13 years, and it has been so fruitful in
bringing so many hearts to love the Hearts of Jesus and Mary.
They are the leaders of the Marian branch of lay members in the
Family of the Two Hearts in their country.
-
Love is also put to the test when one of the spouses fails and
when love must choose not to cease loving. The test of that
moment calls for one to allow love to triumph over hurt and
distrust and to turn it into mercy; it stems from a desire to
receive the other back, and requires that one allow the other to
enter probably through the same wound that he or she caused
(Just like the Pierced Heart of Jesus). The heart of the wounded
spouse may experience a desire to abandon the other…to run
away…to leave…to withdraw and self-protect; but if he or she
chooses to love, he or she will be able say the words of Isaiah
54:7: “for a brief moment I abandoned you, but with great
tenderness I will take you back.”
John Paul II spoke so beautifully in his book Love and
Responsibility about this kind of spousal love: a love which
is stronger than human weakness, stronger even than the sin
which has injured it; a love that is stronger than the death
experienced by the hurt caused by that sin. “The strength of
such love emerges most clearly when the beloved person stumbles,
when his or her weaknesses or even sins come into the open. One
who truly loves does not then withdraw his love, but loves all
the more, loves in full consciousness of the other’s
shortcomings and faults, and without in the least approving of
them” (p. 135).
This kind of love is possible, this kind of triumph of love is
possible, because it looks deeply at the essential value of the
other person. He or she is more than the sin or the fault
committed. This is the way God the Father looks at each one of
us. This is mercy: to see the fullness of the person and not
only the sin or the fault committed, but the totality of the
person; the other is much more than his or her sin. To look at a
spouse in this way is to see his or her dignity.
To pass this test means that love is stronger than death. I can
really say that this would be a great triumph given to love, and
that to allow love to triumph in this arduous test would require
humility, abnegation, and forgiveness.
-
Love is put to the test through the passing of time. In time,
relationships are to grow, mature, and become stronger. But
also, in time, if we do not nourish these relationships, they
can grow cold by routine, they can become tiresome by the weight
of duties, they can become dried out by a lack of attentiveness
to water them with affection; they can become distant by taking
the presence of the other for granted and not investing time in
communicating; they can become stagnant when each one loses
interest in pleasing the other; they can become hardened when
each closes its heart in self-protection; they can become a
battlefield when each one is keeping track of the faults of the
other… Time can be a powerful tool for relationships to mature
in love, but this requires that both hearts take responsibility
not to allow the law of time and decay to extinguish the fire of
love. It is your responsibility to continue to make love visible
to each other through the passing of time. It is your
responsibility to remember that love must be perceived.
LOVE
MUST BE PERCEIVED
If
love is the essence of the human heart, it must be lived, and if it
is lived, it must be visible and perceptible. Love must be
incarnated in the small actions of daily life…Love must be revealed.
It must be such a powerful visible reality that it can cause others,
beginning with your spouse, to believe in love and in the God who is
Love. Love must be recognized by the actions it produces. A spouse
must be able to see, to know and to believe that she or he is loved
by the other.
Many
spouses fall into the great mistake of taking for granted that the
other knows that he or she loves them, and they begin to neglect the
little details of love which can be expressed in the simplicity of
daily life. This lack of showing, in a perceptible way, the love
that you hold for one another can become a sharp pain in the
spouse’s heart.
I
invite each one of you to live in profound awareness that love must
be visible, love must be perceived, and that failures to love can be
healed and restored with simple but clear actions of love.
Do
not ever forget that the essence of your existence is love; that the
path of living it is a communion of love; that the first place to
learn it and practice it is the family; that the way to mature it is
faithfulness to it in times of trials; and that the way to manifest
it is by making it visible and perceptible to those to whom your
love must be revealed.
I
would like to conclude by inviting you to keep your eyes fixed upon
the reason for your communion – love – and to remember that love
grows through love and that love triumphs by choosing freely and
constantly to love at all cost.
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