English
EspañolThe person you love is neither a lottery prize nor an imposed obligation. It is your free and wise choice. Love is common knowledge, not mutual ignorance. Don´t gamble when it comes to love. He who deems himself valuable ponders his actions.
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“The man, who anxiously seeks “a helper fit for him” … capable of alleviating the solitude which he feels amid the animals and the world around him … It is an encounter with a face, a “thou,” who reflects God’s own love and is man’s “best possession, a helper fit for him and a pillar of support” (The Joy of Love, n.12)
Commentary
We are not plants or animals incapable of loving; we are people, the only beings who can love. Choosing your loved one, that man or woman that shall be your intimate companion, should not be a product of chance or necessity, like mating in the animal kingdom. It must be the result of your free will. The act of love is only available to people because we are rational beings who can understand and have free will to choose.
Not being careful when choosing “our partner” can bring this disappointment, suffering, and failure. We risk getting dizzy in the vertigo of these impulses: seeking to love someone because you need to be loved. This necessity can lead to an error when choosing your person, that “someone” that shall stand beside you and cast away the feeling of loneliness, marking the beginning of marital love. This choice that should be a free and wise encounter carries something mysterious and divine. This encounter is the mutual discovery of the most intimate world of two people.
I highlight the importance of acknowledging this natural opposition – the need to be loved or the capability of loving – and the importance of maturing from the need to the capability. The importance of a moment of reflection in order to discover the “real truth” of whom I seek to love, and the “authentic kindness” of what I want to love empowers us to avoid making bad decisions as much as possible.
Sadly, I’ve seen many conjugal shipwrecks. Verifying how, in most cases, both spouses had a real and deep unawareness of one another prior to the marriage shocked me. At times, each one had invented the other person; each had created the character they needed but didn’t exist. It is impossible to love one another – keep your love alive and growing – in the ignorance of who they indeed are.
