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July 3, 2016

Following his scriptural reflections on love in 1Corinithians, Pope Francis turns to address some of the more profound ideas on Love in the Family. He addresses himself first to conjugal love, or love between husband and wife. He sees it as being a unique kind of love which “combines the warmth of friendship and erotic passion, and endures long after emotions and passion subside.”120  He reminds us that the Christian community has long understood that this love between husband and wife is a powerful love, one which is “a reflection of the unbroken covenant between Christ and humanity that culminated in his self-sacrifice on the cross.”120  In understanding marriage in this way, we are not setting it up as an ideal that cannot be achieved, but we are simply affirming that marriage is a precious sign for us, one in which God is mirrored. In other words, in the love that a husband and wife share together, we recognize something of the relationship that exists within the mystery of God’s own being… Father, Son and Spirit. The Lover (Father) loves the Beloved (Son), and the loving (Holy Spirit) that is the nature of the relationship… This mystery of Trinity, the mystery of who god is for us, is mirrored in the love that a husband and wife share with one another. “Marriage is the icon of God’s love for us.”121 And just in case we might think that the Church is over-spiritualizing something that is all too real and often very messy, the Holy Father reminds us that all of this loving is lived out in the very “simple ordinary things of life [in which a couple] can make visible the love with which Christ loves his Church and continues to give his life for her.”121  

Honest and true friendship is an integral aspect of love between husband and wife. A couple enjoy the following attributes: “concern for the good of the other, reciprocity, intimacy, warmth, stability, and the resemblance born of a shared life. Marriage joins to all of this an indissoluble exclusivity expressed in the stable commitment to share and shape together the whole of life.”123  True lovers who choose to marry don’t see their relationship as being merely temporary. “Those who marry do not expect their excitement to fade. Those who witness the celebration of a loving union, however fragile, trust that it will pass the test of time. Children not only want their parents to love one another, but also to be faithful and remain together.123

This choice to love in this way is not always easy, and nor does it come with and guarantees in this day and age. It is really a covenanted love,k in which one gives oneself to another for the other, because they choose to do just that, without necessarily having that love or that gifting be perfectly reciprocated. It is how God chooses to be in relationship with God’s people. It is covenant. “A love that is weak or inform, incapable of accepting marriage as a challenge to be taken up and fought for...cannot sustain a great commitment. It will succumb to the culture of the ephemeral that prevents a constant process of growth.”124  This idea is expressive of the notion that there is indeed something heroic about marriage. It requires that we lift our heads and our hearts to gaze beyond ourselves with the truth of our own soul, and to place ourselves in living service of another. “Promising love for ever is possible when we perceive a plan bigger than our own ideas and undertakings, a plan which sustains us and enables us to surrender our future entirely to the one we love.”124  

To be continued…

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