English
EspañolDo not expect to read a book and be an expert on the subject. Real love is not an idea or a guidebook. The thought of love or even reading about it is not actually loving. One can learn about love from those who love each other, from the people who give birth to it day after day, from those who wholly and sincerely give themselves and embrace others.
If your family loves each other, you have got the best love school. You have got a live and direct experience of love.
Text
“At times we have also proposed a far too abstract and almost artificial theological ideal of marriage, far removed from the concrete situations and practical possibilities of real families. This excessive idealization, especially when we have failed to inspire trust in God’s grace, has not helped to make marriage more desirable and attractive, but quite the opposite.” (The Joy of Love, n.36)
Commentary
When I think of marriage and family, I remember the home where I grew up. I have seen my parents love each other, raise a family, go through some hardships, enjoy moments together, argue a little, forgive each other a lot. They have been like a living and breathing book, real, not abstract, from which my siblings and I have been learning. Thanks to this experience of family love, I carry in my heart and mind the notion of marriage as a desirable, possible, good and beautiful reality, for I have seen it in person. I have touched it with my hands since I was a child.
