You are a person; you are worth it all

Commentary

Every crisis hides a light, that of its causes and, therefore, of its solutions. Even the contemporary crisis of marriage and family. Attention! If I may, I am not speaking of the institutional, ideological, doctrinal crisis, that is to say, external. I am talking about the personal crisis of so many couples – with or without children – who fracture their intimate bonds, lose their love, and tear their homes.

It is tough to adopt the mindset proposed by the text of The Joy of Love. The radical issue, the main one, today is the personal reencounter – of each one of us – with our singular, loving, tender, affable heart, unconditionally giving ourselves to and embracing, within the home, our spouse, as well as living this self-giving and embrace between parents and children, siblings, and grandchildren and grandparents. The concrete manner in which we love is in crisis. We love not enough; we love badly. Stop obsessing about the external social, political, and cultural scenario lest it functions as a blindfold that prevents you from seeing that what home life is lacking is a better way of loving each other.

You have to recover your aim identify the center of the target. Forget about the institutional and external, and aim within your own home.

I have too often come across cases in which one party – a spouse, a father, less so mothers – believes that he or she “fulfill their obligations” with his or her “loved ones” because before them, sometimes with domineering, cold, sullen and reproachful manners, he or she has upheld a doctrine, for example, what the subject in question calls indissolubility, the sacrament, or fidelity or the duty to have children… Those dominant attitudes, harsh and highly rational, besides containing, in many cases, some severe errors, can be a mere “cold and lifeless doctrine.” When does this danger appear? When doctrinal dogmas are preached from a conjugal and family life that is not lived with true love, but rather a hard, cold, dry heart, similar to the heart of a relentless judge and prosecutor, whose treatment is actually “mistreatment” because it manifests a will of domination through shouts, insults, humiliations, contempt, and condemnations to people.

The marriage and family crisis is ended by increasing the quality and truth of our concrete familial loves. That is to say – and not to be abstract – when each one of us transforms his heart, opens it, and is abnegated at home, thus beginning to improve the degree of his dedication and embrace of others, with the proper hues of true love: respect, joy, tenderness, gentleness, affability and warmth, and mercy in favor of each person individually.

Are you one of those fathers or mothers who, in order to love, are waiting for their children to love them first? Are you one of those spouses who, in order to love, are waiting for the other to love them first? Do not make the grave mistake of transferring blame. Of telling yourself that if you are not loving and tender, it is due to the fault of others. Do not indulge in this inner paralysis. It is a ruse of your selfishness and stinginess. Love and persevere…, you will see what miracles it produces in your home.

Try it. Sit alone with your husband or wife. Promise to bring your complicity to life, to make peace with each other. You will see how the embers rekindle in your home. Parents who, as spouses, radiate love…renew the whole family. Moreover, if you can, make the Holy Spirit, Love itself, the intimate accomplice of your conspiracy. He is a specialist in inflaming hearts.