English
EspañolThe gaze of love is not generic, anonymous, uniform, and impersonal. That is how the law sees us. Love´s gaze is concrete, singular and personalized for each loved one and his or her life. Love looks at the beloved with tender mercy. It lifts him, accompanies him, cares for him, and helps him to recover as soon and as much as possible. It does not alienate, condemn, punish or exclude. The person who loves sees no one as cursed or marginalized; he only sees neighbors wounded, in distress, and he can help, sparing no effort. This is the spirit of Jesus Christ present in the parable of the Good Samaritan, in the healing of so many sick in body or soul, in his heart open to love, and present through forgiveness and resurrection.
Text
“The divorced who have entered a new union, for example, can find themselves in a variety of situations, which should not be pigeonholed or fit into overly rigid classifications leaving no room for a suitable personal and pastoral discernment. One thing is a second union consolidated over time, with new children, proven fidelity, generous self-giving, Christian commitment, a consciousness of its irregularity, and of the great difficulty of going back without feeling in conscience that one would fall into new sins. The Church acknowledges situations “where, for serious reasons, such as the children’s upbringing, a man and woman cannot satisfy the obligation to separate.” There are also the cases of those who made every effort to save their first marriage and were unjustly abandoned, or of “those who have entered into a second union for the sake of the children’s upbringing, and are sometimes subjectively certain in conscience that their previous and irreparably broken marriage had never been valid.” Another thing is a new union arising from a recent divorce, with all the suffering and confusion which this entails for children and entire families, or the case of someone who has consistently failed in his obligations to the family. It must remain clear that this is not the ideal which the Gospel proposes for marriage and the family. The Synod Fathers stated that the discernment of pastors must always take place “by adequately distinguishing” with an approach which “carefully discerns situations.” We know that no “easy recipes” exist.” (The Joy of Love, n.298)
Commentary
To discern is, above all, to know the uniqueness of a particular case. Because to care for it is to present the possible solutions adjusted to its circumstances and help it set and take the necessary steps towards improvement (and a greater approach to Jesus Christ). This is impossible if we face the situation generically, anonymously, distantly, and impersonally. Whoever has the gaze of love knows, opens himself, accompanies, and helps a singular, concrete and unrepeatable person. On the contrary, those who lack love gaze at others from the viewpoint of the law and risk seeing abstract subjects, generic entities, among an anonymous and impersonal heap.
What do we do as a family? We are not abstract entities: spouses, children, siblings, parents. May God save us from such an anonymous and distant gaze! When we look at our family members, we see “my wife” or “my husband,” “my brother” or “my sister,” in their unrepeatable singularity and, for this very reason, we can listen to them and help them in their particular needs in an honest, possible and practical way. Why? Because we love them, and love knows each person, and takes care of them, in his or her unrepeatable uniqueness, and discerns his or her particular circumstances.
In marital and family situations, which in the abstract we describe as “irregular” because they seem far removed from the ideal of the Christian life, the gaze of love, respect, and mercy, which we justly owe each person, compels us to examine in depth all their particularities. To save is to save; improve is to improve; it is not to condemn or despair people. When we do so – as I have constantly experienced during counseling – important and particular explanatory factors emerge, extenuating factors that can even exempt the couple from the famous “irregularity.” For example, under a failed marriage, it was not unusual to discover that there was an essential defect in the very structure of the relationship, which under another diagnostic perspective could be called marital nullity: mental incapacities and severe immaturities, ignorance and substantial errors, mistakes, and deceptions, exclusions of essential elements of marriage, lack of freedom, incompatible conditions, violence and mistreatment as a way of conceiving, under domination and submission, the intimate and affective relationship.
Knowing and caring, in particular, provide us with the vital opportunity to discover the manner in which to improve or solve specific problems. It allows us to perceive the good and positive areas that each person and each particular case has. Not everything is black, dark, and bad. When we notice the good hidden in each person and situation, we are in better conditions to discern the personalized, real and possible advice that the particular case deserves. When the persons concerned feel understood and cared for in their uniqueness, they open their hearts to approach Jesus Christ. What would be an enormous contradiction and injustice is that, by generically condemning a case, we prevent Jesus Christ himself from appearing with his mercy and his redeeming love!
May we be able to deeply understand the spirit of discernment that each case deserves: compliance with the law or the norm is not the supreme goal, because they are means; the ultimate objective is to bring each person and his life closer to Jesus Christ, who is the Truth, the Way, and the Life, a life that is truly alive. To see the how in each concrete case and through accompanying it with loving, close personal involvement resides the “discernment” that Pope Francis proposes to treat “irregular situations“. In other words: to act as good shepherds (and fathers and mothers and grandparents) who search and recover the “lost sheep,” or to embody the Good Samaritan, instead of turning our backs on the marginalized and the wounded, withdrawing from them, as if they were vermin precisely because they cannot move on their own and that leaves them on the outskirts.
