English
EspañolTruly loving each other is not an idea in our heads. It´s the true story of the concrete situations experienced by those who love each other. Your family is your first real love story.
Text
“The Bible is full of families, births, love stories, and family crises. This is true from its very first page, with the appearance of Adam and Eve’s family with all its burden of violence but also its enduring strength (cf. Gen 4), to its very last page, where we behold the wedding feast of the Bride and the Lamb (Rev 21:2, 9). Jesus’ description of the two houses, one built on rock and the other on sand (cf. Mt 7:24-27), symbolizes any number of family situations shaped by the exercise of their members’ freedom, for, as the poet says, “every home is a lampstand” (The Joy of Love, n.8)
Commentary
Let me tell you an experience I had during my professional life as a professor and consultant, in case it might be helpful. I listened to many academics’ family relationships’ problems, perplexities, conflicts, and discouragement. After a while, I realized some of them attributed a sort of professional deformity to the act of love. They believed, perhaps unconsciously, that love was a doctrine, an intellectual concept, a theory, the highest one possible even…But the thought of love, however sublime it may be, doesn´t love. Neither can the idea of an apple, no matter how delicious we imagine it, actually reach our stomach and satisfy our hunger. Love is a real relationship here and now, between concrete people. It´s not the mental state of one with oneself. Love is either a reality of acts of a predilection toward our loved ones, carried out day by day, or it´s pure conjecture.
Understanding that love means creating a story together, bringing into existence a life-long tale, comprehending that each family, while trying to be one and loving each other, is writing a real story with its dark moments and silver linings is vital. It frees us from subjectivism and its enclosures.
This vantage point allows us to understand the Bible more profoundly, like a storybook that tells the tales of concrete people. God is not a systematic treaty of theology, philosophy, or any mental conjecture. God is the Trinity of Persons, who lovingly offer you a personal encounter and a story to write together, a shared life here and now. In this regard the Bible is filled with tales of families and people, with their ups and downs … just like us. If you want to love – your people and God – start writing that living story, create history with each of your loved ones. Rely on actions and not supposition.
