In these posts on "Uncommon Love," I will seek to
share with you my understanding on married love through a Catholic perspective.
My understanding has come from 23 years of marriage, more then 10 years
of teaching Natural Family Planning and a more recent study on
"Theology of the Body," by Blessed Pope John Paul II.
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While redecorating our bedroom, I was looking for an appropriate word to paint near our wedding picture and collection of antique wedding and family photos. Something to do with marriage, love, or rest. ..... Latin perhaps. "Respite" sounded good, until I realized that "respite" is sometimes used for the dead, who are hopefully resting eternally.
My
Italian husband came up with "amore," the Italian word for romantic love. So there it is, large as life,
painted above our wedding picture and next to a dozen wedding and antique
photos of relatives who have long since passed. Perhaps
"respite" would have been appropriate after all.
When we met amore was easy, and perhaps the focus of what we were all
about. The feelings of love carried us from day to day, toward engagement
and marriage. Yet, this was not our only interest. From the
beginning we desired that our faith in God be foundational to the life we were
building together. Still married and in love twenty-three years later,
our faith has carried us through some difficult years and situations.
"Amore" would not have been enough.
Next to our wedding photo, at St. Thomas the Apostle in Phoenix
To the right of the word
amore is a crucifix. As Catholics, the Crucifix is not foreign to us; we
wear it, we look at it at Mass, we hang it in various rooms of our house.
It reminds us of God's great love for us. From the beginning
of time we believe in God's faithfulness toward his people. This love reaches its
fullness when,
through the sacrifice of God's son Jesus, we are made heirs to His kingdom and redeemed for eternal life.
Sacrifice is a scary word. It requires pain and blood and the offering of something beyond what a human could fathom or understand. There is a victim involved. Who wants to reflect on that? No wonder some prefer the empty resurrected cross. Let's just skip right to the joy.
Sacrifice is a scary word. It requires pain and blood and the offering of something beyond what a human could fathom or understand. There is a victim involved. Who wants to reflect on that? No wonder some prefer the empty resurrected cross. Let's just skip right to the joy.
The difference with Jesus as victim is that He gives of himself freely. Though one in the same, He gives as man, who is also Divine, and receives the offering as God. It is a love that goes both ways. God who is Love both gives and receives. The fruit of that kind of love is not containable. What pours out and overflows is the Holy Spirit.
In our marriage there are times we must choose to love despite the pain. There are actions and attitudes that go past the here and now which imprint on our marriage something lasting. It would be easier to skip right to the joy, but not better. I know that we can only be one when we sacrifice our own
desires for the good of our marriage. The two dimensional love as in a photograph or a
mirror takes the shape of that third dimension when we give of ourselves
completely in marriage; with nothing held back. The crucifix is a good
reminder of this deeper love.
Romantic love is nice;
it has it's time and moment. Like the word on my wall though, it is
flat without the deeper sacrificial love that is offered in the Sacrament of Marriage. What more could any of us desire than to be loved always, as we
are... unconditionally. This is the kind of love I desire, the kind
I want to give.
It is not amore. It is more.
It is not amore. It is more.
"How can I ever express the happiness of a marriage joined by the church...? How wonderful the bond between two believers, now one in hope, one in desire, one is discipline, one in the same service,....undivided in spirit and flesh, truly two in one flesh. Where the flesh is one, one also is the spirit." Turtullian (160- after 220, Latin ecclesiastical writer)
