English
EspañolThe heart that loves is warm, patient, and compassionate. It lends you a hand to raise you. The harsh heart does not love. It is a piece of ice and takes advantage of your shortcomings to condemn you.
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Being patient does not mean letting ourselves be constantly mistreated, tolerating physical aggression or allowing other people to use us. We encounter problems whenever we think that relationships or people ought to be perfect, or when we put ourselves at the centre and expect things to turn out our way. Then everything makes us impatient, everything makes us react aggressively.
Unless we cultivate patience, we will always find excuses for responding angrily. We will end up incapable of living together, antisocial, unable to control our impulses, and our families will become battlegrounds. That is why the word of God tells us: “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, with all malice” (Eph 4:31). Patience takes root when I recognize that other people also have a right to live in this world, just as they are. It does not matter if they hold me back, if they unsettle my plans, or annoy me by the way they act or think, or if they are not everything I want them to be.
Love always has an aspect of deep compassion that leads to accepting the other person as part of this world, even when he or she acts differently than I would like. (The Joy of Love, n.92)
Commentary
Through love, lovers tenderly contemplate the intimate truth of each other. Thanks to love, they make the virtues and defects of the other person their own. The beloved´s joys and sorrows are lived as if they were one´s own life. The gaze of love sees a reality different from the indifferent and cold gaze. The reality that the loving eye sees is the beloved´s intimacy, a more profound and authentic scene.
Sometimes, over time, apparent defects are seen in a different light. It is understood that they were not as severe as they were perceived in the first years of marriage. On some occasions, one even discovers that they were virtues. Loving each other allows those experiences of better and deeper embrace and intimate acceptance. To embrace our loved ones unconditionally generates inner peace and tranquility. We can view our own defects and work on them precisely because of love to give oneself better to the beloved. Furthermore, thanks to the environment of love, this work of improvement offers patience, is not intransigent and tense, lifts the spirit instead of causing bitterness, and is done with enthusiasm, despite the pruning and abnegation. Loving each other is like pouring a drop of honey, more potent than a thousand litters of gall.
