Host Mary Rose Bacani discovers the heart-warming stories of pilgrims who travel to Saint Joseph's Oratory from all over the world in search of peace, holiness and healing. She also visits the Cantins, a family from Southwestern Ontario that has one of the most impressive archives of Br. André in North America. Other featured segments include ordained and lay collaborators at Holy Cross-run institutes as well as touching interviews with men and women who share how Br. André continues to touch the hearts of all today.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Remembering Brother André
Monday, February 27, 2012
I am sending you a saint
Saint André Bessette: Montreal’s Miracle Worker
by Brother André Marie
October 25, 2004
Read the entire article here.
by Brother André Marie
October 25, 2004
In the city of Montreal, Province of Quebec, Canada, on a rise of earth known as Mount Royal, there stands a religious edifice of staggering proportions. It is three hundred and sixty-one feet high, taller than either Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in New York or the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. . . .
It is the Oratory of Saint Joseph, a worthy tribute to him who is the head of the Holy Family and the Patron of the Universal Church.
If one were to ask any Canadian for the name of the person who built this magnificent House of God, he would be told, “Brother André.” Yet, this little lay brother’s name does not appear on any of the official records of the building of the Oratory. He was only a porter — a doorman — at a college owned and operated by his religious congregation. He was a little man, both in size and, if one were to judge by appearance, in importance. He was not a priest; therefore he could neither offer Mass nor preach. Because of poor education, he did not know how to read or write until he reached the age of twenty-five.
How is it, then, that this little brother is known and venerated all over the world as the little saint who built the Oratory of Saint Joseph in Montreal?
The Early Years
On August 9, 1845, Alfred Bessette was born to Isaac and Clothilde Bessette, the eighth in what would become a family of twelve children. The Bessettes were a poor French Canadian family who lived in the farming village of St. Gregoire, thirty miles from Montreal. . . . Alfred was born a very sick baby; so sick, in fact, that his father baptized him shortly after birth, fearing he would not survive. This lack of physical health and strength stayed with him throughout his entire life, yet he lived to the incredible age of ninety-one.Recalling what he could of those early years, Brother André later told of how happy they were for him, of how great was his love for his parents, especially his mother, who had special affection for her frail child. But that happiness was soon tempered by tragedy. When he was six years old, his father was killed in a lumbering accident near the town of Farnham. Four years later, his mother, trying to raise twelve children single-handedly, contracted tuberculosis and was forced to put the children up for adoption. Keeping with her only the feeblest one, Alfred, she went to live with her sister, Mrs. Timothée Nadeau, in St. Cesaire. Two years later, in 1857, she died. Brother André later recalled, with great love and affection, her last days. . . .
Alfred was but twelve years old when his mother died. He was now an orphan, separated from his brothers and sisters. But the next ten years of his life would see the accelerated formation of a saint.
After the death of his mother, he remained with the Nadeau family. Timothée put him to work on the family farm, but, try as he may, little Alfred could not cope with strenuous farm labor. He simply did not have the physical stamina required to perform the chores asked of him. Then his uncle sent him to a cobbler to learn the shoemaking trade, but this didn’t work either. The poor lad was so clumsy that he was constantly pricking his fingers with the sharp cobbler’s awl. This scenario was repeated over and over again: He would take a job and work at it as hard as he could, but always his poor health made it impossible for him to continue. . . .
Father André Provençal
It was during this time that he came into contact with the priest who proved to be the worthy spiritual tutor of a saint, Father André Provençal, the Curé of Saint Césaire. It was Father Provençal who instructed little Alfred for his first Holy Communion. It was Father Provençal who inspired devotion to Saint Joseph. And it was also this holy parish priest who put Brother André on that road which, for him, would end in perfection — the road to a religious vocation. . . .
Across the street from Father Provençal’s parish Church was a new building that had been built during the time Alfred was away from Saint Césaire. The building was a school where some eighty pupils were taught by six brothers, members of a fledgling religious congregation known as the Congregation of the Holy Cross. . . .
Congregation of the Holy Cross - Acceptance and Profession
Alfred’s meeting with these brothers was an event of singular importance. He was impressed by them; their black habit with Roman collar, cincture and medal of Saint Joseph, their manly bearing and devotion all attracted him. Nevertheless, he was nervous. These men were educated; they ran a school — just the six of them — with eighty children. Alfred was still an illiterate. But Father Provençal soon relieved him of that worry, assuring his young friend there was a need in the order for janitors and manual laborers. . . . Then, in 1870, he made up his mind that, if they would have him, he would join the Congregation. They accepted him into the novitiate in Côte-des-Neiges, and he took the habit of the order. The novice master, Father Gastineau, gave him a great welcome. Perhaps he was expecting much of the new arrival, because before Brother André got to the novitiate, the novice master received a letter from Father Provençal which said, “I am sending a saint to your Congregation.” . . .
Our Lady’s Porter and Miracles
His first assignment was as porter of the College of Notre-Dame-du-Sacré-Coeur in Côte-des-Neiges, the same college where he spent much of his novitiate. This was the position he held for nearly forty years. . . .
God, knowing that men do not think often enough of their final end, nor of Him, nor of the truths of religion, gives human nature external signs of His presence and the truth of His religion. . . . As is plain from Church History and the lives of the saints, the divine foundation of the Church was proved by miracles in every age. . . .
As for Brother André, the public nature and frequency of the miracles he worked make them impossible to dispute. He cured many of the students at the college, so many that he developed a reputation as a great miracle worker.
One day, as the pious porter was scrubbing the floor in the parlor of the college, a lady came to see him, having heard of his reputation. She was so afflicted with rheumatism that she could only walk with the assistance of two men supporting her by holding each arm. Her request to Brother André was simple enough: “I am suffering from rheumatism. I want you to heal me.” Not looking up from the floor he was still busily scrubbing, Brother André said to the men assisting her, “Let her walk.” The woman walked out unassisted. . . .
Father Henri-Paul Bergeron, a Holy Cross Priest who knew Frère André, gives an account in his book, The Wonder Man of Mount Royal, of an event that recalls some of those recorded in the Gospels:“One day as he was going along Bienville Street in Montreal, a sick woman was brought to him. Immediately all of the sick of the neighborhood, children, men and women, were brought out until the whole street was filled with the sick and the infirm. Brother André attended to all with kindness, and his chauffeur. . . making his way through the crowd, remarked:On another occasion, when the porter was in the infirmary, he saw a student sick in bed. He told the boy, who had been ordered to rest by the school doctor, to get up. “You’re not sick, you lazy bones! Go and play with the others.” This the boy did, in perfect health and good cheer. The story of the incident soon spread around the college. Teachers, the doctor, students and parents alike marveled at the miracles wrought by the confident prayer of the young brother.
‘How wonderful; it is like a scene from the life of Our Lord: everyone rushed forth to beg for favors and cures.’
‘Perhaps so’ replied the Brother, ‘but God is surely making use of a very vile instrument.’”
We say that the miracles were wrought by the prayers of the brother. Perhaps, if he were here, he would rebuke us for saying this. He never claimed that he worked a single miracle. In his humility he gave all the credit to Saint Joseph, in whose power Brother André had infinite confidence. In fact, any attempt to credit him with miracles brought a stern reprimand from the normally kind religious. One day a visitor said to him, “You are better than Saint Joseph. We pray to him and nothing happens, but when we come to see you we are cured.” The brother was so incensed at the slander of the Holy Patriarch that he screamed, “Get out of here. It is Saint Joseph who cured you, not I. Get out! Throw him out!” The incident shook the frail constitution of the holy man so much that he spent three days sick in bed. . . .
The Oratory of Saint Joseph
In the midst of all of the excitement, the brother’s heart became fixed on one holy ambition: the erection in Montreal of a shrine to Saint Joseph. . . . The shrine was in the thoughts and prayers of the porter for quite some time before he dared ask permission to build such a thing. He let only a handful of privileged friends know of his holy aspiration. Every once in a while he would let out a stray remark impressing on the hearer the need for a chapel to Saint Joseph. Some of these occasions came with certain signs of the divine origin of the brother’s dream. One of his confreres told him of a strange phenomenon in his cell: It seemed that every time this religious put his statue of Saint Joseph facing his bed, he came back to find the statue turned around, facing the Mount Royal. Laughing, Frère André told his confrere, “It is not strange at all; it simply means that Saint Joseph wants to be honored on the mountain.”Certainly Brother André wanted Saint Joseph honored on the mountain. In 1890, he took a young student with him on one of his regular Thursday meditation walks. Taking the student up to the mountainside across the street from the school, he told him, “I have hidden a medal of Saint Joseph here. We will pray that he will arrange the purchase of this land for us.” For six years he persevered in prayer for that intention, and in 1896, his prayers were rewarded. The Holy Cross Congregation purchased the land, fearing that such a prime piece of real estate would attract a club or resort which would be an unwholesome distraction so near the students. After the land was purchased, Brother André put a statue of Saint Joseph in a little cave on his chosen site. Placing a bowl in front of the statue, he planned on collecting alms from Saint Joseph’s petitioners, alms which would be used to build a chapel.
To put it simply, what started out as a fifteen-by eighteen foot chapel in 1904 became a minor basilica in 1955, and was completed — interior and all — in 1966. In his lifetime, the shrine became big enough to warrant having a full-time guardian, a job to which Brother André was appointed in 1909. For the present, however, we would rather discuss the life of the holy builder than the building itself.
From the moment that he conceived the idea to the day he died, the Oratory of Saint Joseph was a sacred task which Blessed André pursued with burning zeal. Everything that he could do in the confines of religious obedience to make the shrine a reality, he did immediately. . . .
Zeal for Souls
Many of the people who sought cures from Frère André were good Catholics; but others were heretics and unbelievers of all kinds. One of the witnesses at his cause for beatification said, “As to heretics, schismatics and also unbelievers, Brother André treated them with more kindness and sympathy than the Catholics. He wanted to gain the confidence of such people. When the right time came he talked to them of the goodness of God and of religion. . . He profited by the visits of Protestants and unbelievers to slide in a good word to them, an evangelical word.”
It was by this kind of work that the guardian of the Oratory wrought thousands of conversions, many among lapsed and lukewarm Catholics, but also among Protestants, Freemasons and Jews. Brother André looked upon the humility of the non-Catholic, in coming to a Catholic brother for a cure, as the beginning of faith. In this he was imitating Our Lord Himself. . . . About this, the Blessed said, “Those who are cured quickly often are people who have no faith or little faith. On the other hand, those who have solid faith are not cured so quickly, for the good God prefers to allow them to suffer that they will be sanctified even more.” . . .
Read the entire article here.
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Friday, February 24, 2012
Coming Soon - Brother André
On March 1, 2012, Cinema Catechism will be pleased to present Brother André, with discussion on the theme of the Beatitudes.
On January 6, 1937, the death of this humble doorkeeper for a boys' college drew over a million people to Montreal for his funeral. For 40 years, Brother André Bessette of the Congregation of Holy Cross welcomed people at the door and became known as a miraculous healer. Brother André was a man of prayer, of hospitality, and of compassion; a man who drew people in so to experience a God who is love. On October 17, 2010, Brother André became the first male Canadian-born saint and the first saint for the Congregation of Holy Cross. He is living proof that "it is with the smallest brushes that the divine artist paints the most beautiful pictures."
Ignatius Press Movie Review
Although tens of thousands asked for his prayers during his lifetime, and over one million people came for his funeral, many if not most people in the United States know nothing about Brother André. Here is some information on him from EWTN --
On January 6, 1937, the death of this humble doorkeeper for a boys' college drew over a million people to Montreal for his funeral. For 40 years, Brother André Bessette of the Congregation of Holy Cross welcomed people at the door and became known as a miraculous healer. Brother André was a man of prayer, of hospitality, and of compassion; a man who drew people in so to experience a God who is love. On October 17, 2010, Brother André became the first male Canadian-born saint and the first saint for the Congregation of Holy Cross. He is living proof that "it is with the smallest brushes that the divine artist paints the most beautiful pictures."
Ignatius Press Movie Review
This is a beautiful feature film on the newly canonized St. André of Montreal, the humble doorkeeper brother, written by Jean Claude LeBrecque that re-creates the story of St. André Bessette's life as he speaks with his niece who is discerning her vocation. It tells of Brother André's struggles and the perseverance it took to remain faithful to God's call and fulfill His will. Stars Marc Legault and Sylvie Ferlatte.
Although tens of thousands asked for his prayers during his lifetime, and over one million people came for his funeral, many if not most people in the United States know nothing about Brother André. Here is some information on him from EWTN --
This Holy Cross Brother, known as "Frère André," has been credited with thousands of cures. He was the founder of St. Joseph's Oratory in Montreal, Canada, perhaps the world's principal shrine in honor of St. Joseph. When he died at the age of 91, it was estimated that close to a million people came to the Oratory to pay their last respects. He was beatified in 1982.Lord our God, friend of the lowly, you gave your servant, Brother André, a great devotion to St. Joseph and a special commitment to the poor and afflicted. Through his intercession help us to follow his example of prayer and love and so come to share with him in your glory.
André was the eighth child in a family of 12 and at baptism he was given the name Alfred. Orphaned at the age of 12, he tried his hand at various trades but was not successful in any of them. He could barely read and write and was sickly most of his life. At the age of 15 he became a Brother of Holy Cross but was rejected at the end of the novitiate. At the insistence of the bishop of Montreal, however, Brother André was allowed to make religious profession. For forty years he worked as porter at the College of Notre Dame, until he was needed full time at the shrine of St. Joseph. People from all over Canada came to him for cures or for spiritual direction. The Oratory that he built in honor of St. Joseph was solemnly dedicated in 1955 and raised to the rank of a minor basilica.
The Opening Prayer of the Mass for his feast day describes two characteristics of the spirituality of Brother André: his deep devotion to St. Joseph and his "commitment to the poor and afflicted." For many years he gathered funds to replace the primitive chapel with a suitable church, even cutting the hair of the students at five cents each. His concern for those who needed spiritual healing and support led him to spend 8 to 10 hours a day receiving clients. He became so well known that secretaries had to be assigned to answer the 80,000 letters he received annually.
If one were to seek the outstanding virtue of Brother André one would have to say that it was his humility. He once said: "I am ignorant. If there were anyone more ignorant, the good God would choose him in my place." And when the power of healing was attributed to him, he responded: "It is St. Joseph who cures. I am only his little dog."
The significance of the life and works of Brother André for today's Christian is the fact that this humble Brother, who could scarcely read or write, was chosen by God as an instrument for good. As we read in the Preface for Martyrs, God reveals his power shining through our human weakness.
Monday, February 20, 2012
Fatima and the Government's Contraception Mandate
Today, the Church celebrates the feast day of the humble shepherd children of Fatima, Blessed Francisco and Blessed Jacinta. Given the various many attacks on the Church and the Catholic Faith by government, most recently the assault on religious liberty and conscience by the Obama Administration, we need to remember what Our Lady told us at Fatima -- although the faithful will suffer, and the Church will be persecuted, her Immaculate Heart will triumph.
The Mission of Fatima Continues
On October 13, 1917, a reported 70,000 people were present for the "Miracle of the Sun" outside the small town of Fatima, Portugal, where a radiant Lady in white had appeared to three humble shepherd children. The Lady had spoken of the war then raging in Europe (World War I) and had warned of an even greater war to follow (World War II), and she asked that people pray for the conversion of Russia to prevent its errors (e.g. Communism) from being spread throughout the world. A third "secret" involved the suffering and shooting of a "bishop in white," who has since been interpreted as being the pope.
The world wars are over, the Soviet Union is no more, and Eastern Europe is free. Pope John Paul II was in fact shot on May 13, 1981, the anniversary of the first apparition, and he suffered greatly before his death. Now that so much of the prophetic message of Our Lady has come to fruition, does that mean that Fatima is now relegated to the past? Are those events and the message of Our Lady of Fatima now merely a historical curiosity? Or perhaps we ought to ask: What really is The Message of Fatima?
What is The Message of Fatima? What is the ultimate message given to us, the ultimate meaning?
There is great hardship and suffering in the world. Yet, we do not despair because Jesus came to save us from death and destruction. We have hope. Not the "hope" of wishes and grasping at straws, but of trustworthy confidence and assured expectation of salvation. (Spe Salvi) But Jesus asks for our help in the work of salvation, which comes through the Cross. We are called to, among other things, pray for others, make a gift of self in love to others, and to help Him carry the Cross, taking upon ourselves what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ and suffering with Him. (Col 1:24).
The ultimate message of Fatima is this: Humanity will necessarily suffer great hardship in this world, but God has not abandoned us. The Lady in white, clothed as with the sun, asks us to help her Son in the work of salvation, including prayer, penance, and redemptive suffering, not merely for ourselves, but for the salvation of others, for their conversion away from sin to embracing holiness. The faithful will suffer and even be hated and persecuted, but all this is beatitude (Mt. 5:3-10). In the end, notwithstanding all of the great evils that are thrust upon us, her Immaculate Heart will triumph.
Ultimately, The Message of Fatima is hope.
___________________
Here is a really interesting documentary from Italy on Fatima --
The Mission of Fatima Continues
On October 13, 1917, a reported 70,000 people were present for the "Miracle of the Sun" outside the small town of Fatima, Portugal, where a radiant Lady in white had appeared to three humble shepherd children. The Lady had spoken of the war then raging in Europe (World War I) and had warned of an even greater war to follow (World War II), and she asked that people pray for the conversion of Russia to prevent its errors (e.g. Communism) from being spread throughout the world. A third "secret" involved the suffering and shooting of a "bishop in white," who has since been interpreted as being the pope.
The world wars are over, the Soviet Union is no more, and Eastern Europe is free. Pope John Paul II was in fact shot on May 13, 1981, the anniversary of the first apparition, and he suffered greatly before his death. Now that so much of the prophetic message of Our Lady has come to fruition, does that mean that Fatima is now relegated to the past? Are those events and the message of Our Lady of Fatima now merely a historical curiosity? Or perhaps we ought to ask: What really is The Message of Fatima?
We would be mistaken to think that Fatima’s prophetic mission is complete. Here there takes on new life the plan of God which asks humanity from the beginning: "Where is your brother Abel . . . Your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground!" (Gen 4:9). Mankind has succeeded in unleashing a cycle of death and terror, but failed in bringing it to an end... In sacred Scripture we often find that God seeks righteous men and women in order to save the city of man and he does the same here, in Fatima, when Our Lady asks: "Do you want to offer yourselves to God, to endure all the sufferings which he will send you, in an act of reparation for the sins by which he is offended and of supplication for the conversion of sinners?" (Memoirs of Sister Lúcia, I, 162).--Pope Benedict XVI, Fatima, May 13, 2010
At a time when the human family was ready to sacrifice all that was most sacred on the altar of the petty and selfish interests of nations, races, ideologies, groups and individuals, our Blessed Mother came from heaven, offering to implant in the hearts of all those who trust in her the Love of God burning in her own heart. At that time it was only to three children, yet the example of their lives spread and multiplied, especially as a result of the travels of the Pilgrim Virgin, in countless groups throughout the world dedicated to the cause of fraternal solidarity. May the seven years which separate us from the centenary of the apparitions hasten the fulfilment of the prophecy of the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, to the glory of the Most Holy Trinity.
What is The Message of Fatima? What is the ultimate message given to us, the ultimate meaning?
There is great hardship and suffering in the world. Yet, we do not despair because Jesus came to save us from death and destruction. We have hope. Not the "hope" of wishes and grasping at straws, but of trustworthy confidence and assured expectation of salvation. (Spe Salvi) But Jesus asks for our help in the work of salvation, which comes through the Cross. We are called to, among other things, pray for others, make a gift of self in love to others, and to help Him carry the Cross, taking upon ourselves what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ and suffering with Him. (Col 1:24).
The ultimate message of Fatima is this: Humanity will necessarily suffer great hardship in this world, but God has not abandoned us. The Lady in white, clothed as with the sun, asks us to help her Son in the work of salvation, including prayer, penance, and redemptive suffering, not merely for ourselves, but for the salvation of others, for their conversion away from sin to embracing holiness. The faithful will suffer and even be hated and persecuted, but all this is beatitude (Mt. 5:3-10). In the end, notwithstanding all of the great evils that are thrust upon us, her Immaculate Heart will triumph.
The Heart open to God, purified by contemplation of God, is stronger than guns and weapons of every kind. The fiat of Mary, the word of her heart, has changed the history of the world, because it brought the Saviour into the world — because, thanks to her Yes, God could become man in our world and remains so for all time.Evil will not have the last say, the good will prevail. "He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there shall be no more death or mourning, wailing or pain." (Rev. 21:1-8)
The Evil One has power in this world, as we see and experience continually; he has power because our freedom continually lets itself be led away from God. But since God himself took a human heart and has thus steered human freedom towards what is good, the freedom to choose evil no longer has the last word. From that time forth, the word that prevails is this: “In the world you will have tribulation, but take heart; I have overcome the world” (Jn 16:33). The message of Fatima invites us to trust in this promise. (Theological Commentary on Fatima, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith)
Ultimately, The Message of Fatima is hope.
___________________
Here is a really interesting documentary from Italy on Fatima --
______________________
See also -
--Timeline of the Events of Fatima
--Theological Commentary on Fatima by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
--Church Teaching on Marian Apparitions and Other Private Revelations
--Beatification of Francisco and Jacinta and the Message of Fatima
--The Truth of Sin and Suffering, and Our Helping Jesus in the Work of Salvation
--Other Source Material on Fatima
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Saturday, February 18, 2012
The Beatitude of Spiritual Poverty and Teaching the Faith to the Young
As Pope Benedict notes in his book, Jesus of Nazareth, the Beatitudes are paradoxes, a transformation of worldly values, which bring hope and joy amidst affliction and hardship. The Beatitudes are words of both promise and spiritual direction, indicating the way of conversion and reform of life – teaching how to love God and one another and thereby be a light of truth to the world.
The first of the Beatitudes says -- "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven"
What does this mean?
The “poor in spirit” are not those who are spiritually deficient, but are those who humbly are in need of God, who are detached from worldly things and rely on Him, unlike those who have no want or need for God. These latter people are "rich in spirit," thinking that they already have everything they need spiritually, such that they have no need for, or want of God. The "rich in spirit" think they know it all, whereas the "poor in spirit" admit to themselves that they do not know everything, and that they are in need of God very much.
This is a concept that even children should be able to grasp. Most children know other children who are pushy know-it-alls who don't think that they need to or should listen to mom and dad or to their teachers. And they know that these other arrogant kids are fools. On the other hand, those kids who admit to themselves that they are still just kids, that they don't have all the answers, and that they are very much in need of mom and dad, as well as their teachers and other grown-ups, it is they who are blessed.
They are blessed because, in their humility, they are willing and able to listen to their parents and teachers, and be taken care of by them, and prosper, which are a kind of symbolic "kingdom of heaven." Conversely, the kid who knows everything and runs away from home because he thinks he doesn't need his parents, ends up being cursed, not blessed.
What is true regarding kids and their parents on earth is true regarding kids and their Parent in heaven. If they are blessed by their admitting that they are dependent upon mom and dad, how much more will they be blessed in admitting that they are dependent upon God.
However, teaching the faith to young people can be a challenge if only because the faith is about salvation -- be saved from something bad -- and many youths often have never been in a position to know hardship, much less to think about things like death.
It is one thing to go up to an adult who has know misery and say, "I have 'good news' for you, Jesus will deliver you from your misery." It is quite another thing to try to explain that to a child or teenager who has never known want, but has been fed, clothed, sheltered, and loved their entire lives.
So, teaching the faith to them can be a challenge, including the Beatitudes. But in addition to analogizing the blessings of spiritual poverty to the blessings one has from his dependence upon his parents, we should remember that, as stated above, the Beatitudes are paradoxes, a transformation of worldly values, which bring hope and joy amidst affliction and hardship.
Perhaps some young people have personally known hardship, if they have not, then perhaps they have at least witnessed the hardship of others. For example, perhaps they are aware of the earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, so you can have them empathize with the victims and imagine being in their place.
Reflecting on the Beatitudes in such situations can be occasions of hope, as well as a teachable moment. The Beatitudes about being "poor in spirit," mournful, and merciful would all seem to apply here. And the lesson is this --
Do not despair in times of hardship and suffering. Rather, have hope by putting your trust in God (be poor of spirit).
When everything is gone, when your home is destroyed and you have nothing left, put your trust in God, who will never abandon you. If you do that, if you put your spiritual reliance on Him, then He will save you, He will give you an entire kingdom to replace your destroyed home. Maybe not in this life, but if you humbly recognize that you need Him above all things, and you depend upon Him spiritually, God will bring you to a place where there is no more want, no more tears.
Youth should know that, if ever they encounter hardship themselves, they have no need to worry, no need to cry, if they humbly love and trust in God. If they are poor in spirit, they kingdom of heaven is theirs.
.
The first of the Beatitudes says -- "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven"
What does this mean?
The “poor in spirit” are not those who are spiritually deficient, but are those who humbly are in need of God, who are detached from worldly things and rely on Him, unlike those who have no want or need for God. These latter people are "rich in spirit," thinking that they already have everything they need spiritually, such that they have no need for, or want of God. The "rich in spirit" think they know it all, whereas the "poor in spirit" admit to themselves that they do not know everything, and that they are in need of God very much.
This is a concept that even children should be able to grasp. Most children know other children who are pushy know-it-alls who don't think that they need to or should listen to mom and dad or to their teachers. And they know that these other arrogant kids are fools. On the other hand, those kids who admit to themselves that they are still just kids, that they don't have all the answers, and that they are very much in need of mom and dad, as well as their teachers and other grown-ups, it is they who are blessed.
They are blessed because, in their humility, they are willing and able to listen to their parents and teachers, and be taken care of by them, and prosper, which are a kind of symbolic "kingdom of heaven." Conversely, the kid who knows everything and runs away from home because he thinks he doesn't need his parents, ends up being cursed, not blessed.
What is true regarding kids and their parents on earth is true regarding kids and their Parent in heaven. If they are blessed by their admitting that they are dependent upon mom and dad, how much more will they be blessed in admitting that they are dependent upon God.
However, teaching the faith to young people can be a challenge if only because the faith is about salvation -- be saved from something bad -- and many youths often have never been in a position to know hardship, much less to think about things like death.
It is one thing to go up to an adult who has know misery and say, "I have 'good news' for you, Jesus will deliver you from your misery." It is quite another thing to try to explain that to a child or teenager who has never known want, but has been fed, clothed, sheltered, and loved their entire lives.
So, teaching the faith to them can be a challenge, including the Beatitudes. But in addition to analogizing the blessings of spiritual poverty to the blessings one has from his dependence upon his parents, we should remember that, as stated above, the Beatitudes are paradoxes, a transformation of worldly values, which bring hope and joy amidst affliction and hardship.
Perhaps some young people have personally known hardship, if they have not, then perhaps they have at least witnessed the hardship of others. For example, perhaps they are aware of the earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, so you can have them empathize with the victims and imagine being in their place.
Reflecting on the Beatitudes in such situations can be occasions of hope, as well as a teachable moment. The Beatitudes about being "poor in spirit," mournful, and merciful would all seem to apply here. And the lesson is this --
Do not despair in times of hardship and suffering. Rather, have hope by putting your trust in God (be poor of spirit).
When everything is gone, when your home is destroyed and you have nothing left, put your trust in God, who will never abandon you. If you do that, if you put your spiritual reliance on Him, then He will save you, He will give you an entire kingdom to replace your destroyed home. Maybe not in this life, but if you humbly recognize that you need Him above all things, and you depend upon Him spiritually, God will bring you to a place where there is no more want, no more tears.
Youth should know that, if ever they encounter hardship themselves, they have no need to worry, no need to cry, if they humbly love and trust in God. If they are poor in spirit, they kingdom of heaven is theirs.
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Sunday, January 29, 2012
Coming Soon: The Passion of Bernadette
Cinema Catechism will be presenting The Passion of Bernadette this Thursday, February 2, 2012, together with catechesis and discussion on the theme of the Beatitudes. (NOTE: There is a time change to 7:30 p.m. The showing had originally been scheduled for 7 p.m., but the notices in the church bulletin and the pulpit announcement said 7:30 -- ergo, we will be showing the feature film at 7:30, and find something else to show or do for those who come at 7 p.m.)
Bernadette Soubirous lived in a time of ideological hostility to religion, including the constricted scientism of intellectual elites, who rejected religious faith as superstition and believed instead that "seeing is believing," that if something could not be subjected to measurement and testing, it did not exist. Bernadette, though, was no intellectual elite. Rather, for her, believing was seeing. Because of her faith, her simple modest faith of the heart, an innocent and humble love for the Lord, the lowly Bernadette was able to see what others could not: she who is our life, our sweetness, and our hope.
Surely, one could say that the words of the Sermon on the Mount rightly apply to Bernadette, Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are meek, blessed are the merciful, blessed are the pure of heart, blessed are those persecuted for holiness' sake." (Mt. 5:8)
These qualities shine through in this touching film. Ignatius Press says of The Passion of Bernadette:
Bernadette Soubirous lived in a time of ideological hostility to religion, including the constricted scientism of intellectual elites, who rejected religious faith as superstition and believed instead that "seeing is believing," that if something could not be subjected to measurement and testing, it did not exist. Bernadette, though, was no intellectual elite. Rather, for her, believing was seeing. Because of her faith, her simple modest faith of the heart, an innocent and humble love for the Lord, the lowly Bernadette was able to see what others could not: she who is our life, our sweetness, and our hope.
Surely, one could say that the words of the Sermon on the Mount rightly apply to Bernadette, Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are meek, blessed are the merciful, blessed are the pure of heart, blessed are those persecuted for holiness' sake." (Mt. 5:8)
These qualities shine through in this touching film. Ignatius Press says of The Passion of Bernadette:
Following up the acclaimed best-selling movie, Bernadette, the story of the apparitions of Our Lady in Lourdes to Bernadette Soubirous, this beautiful Jean Delannoy film tells the rest of the story of her life after the Marian visions- the life that made Bernadette a saint. The grotto at Lourdes is flourishing with many pilgrims, and Bernadette leaves to enter the convent of the sisters of Nevers to dedicate her life to God. Under the harsh rule of the Novice Mistress who "doesn't believe in apparitions", Bernadette, now Sister Marie Bernard, begins her life of achieving sanctity through prayer, faith, suffering, and deep charity toward all. With another moving performance by actress Sydney Penny, this film reveals incessant illness and suffering that St. Bernadette patiently, even cheerfully endured throughout her life in the convent, often repeating her prayer to "suffer and offer it to God." She went to her eternal reward in 1879, at the age of 35. When her body was exhumed many years later, it was found to be incorrupt. Today she lays in rest in a glass case in the chapel of the Sisters of Nevers, where millions have come to see "the little saint of Lourdes."
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Blessed Marianne Cope of Molokai to Become Saint Marianne
When Father Damien asked for assistance to care for the "lepers of Molokai," Sister Marianne Cope came. This week, she was canonized.
December 20, 2011. (Romereports.com) Benedict XVI has approved the canonization of seven blessed. Among them is the first Native American to ascend to the altars and the main colloborator of Father Damien.
The pope has recognized a miracle attributed to the intercession of each one of them. He has not officially called for their canonization but, he's expected to do so next fall.
One of the future saints is the Italian Giovanni Battista Piamarta, born in 1841 and founder of two religious orders.
Then there is the French Jacques Berthieu, a Jesuit priest shot to death in Madagascar in 1896 for defending Christianity.
Another is the Spanish nun Mary of Mount Carmel. In 1892 she founded the Congregation of the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception.
Also on the list is Marianne Cope, the nun who in 1888 traveled to Hawaii to help Father Damien of Molokai in the care of leprosy patients.
Possibly the most unique is the American Indian Katherine Tekakwitha, who in 1676 was marginalized by her tribe after converting to Christianity.
The teenager Pedro Calungsod will be the second saint in Philippine history. He was martyred in 1672 for defending missionaries.
The last on the list is Germany's Anna Schäfer, who always wanted to be a missionary. In 1901 she suffered burns on her legs, she was then bedridden for 24 years and offered her pain for the salvation of souls.
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December 20, 2011. (Romereports.com) Benedict XVI has approved the canonization of seven blessed. Among them is the first Native American to ascend to the altars and the main colloborator of Father Damien.
The pope has recognized a miracle attributed to the intercession of each one of them. He has not officially called for their canonization but, he's expected to do so next fall.
One of the future saints is the Italian Giovanni Battista Piamarta, born in 1841 and founder of two religious orders.
Then there is the French Jacques Berthieu, a Jesuit priest shot to death in Madagascar in 1896 for defending Christianity.
Another is the Spanish nun Mary of Mount Carmel. In 1892 she founded the Congregation of the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception.
Also on the list is Marianne Cope, the nun who in 1888 traveled to Hawaii to help Father Damien of Molokai in the care of leprosy patients.
Possibly the most unique is the American Indian Katherine Tekakwitha, who in 1676 was marginalized by her tribe after converting to Christianity.
The teenager Pedro Calungsod will be the second saint in Philippine history. He was martyred in 1672 for defending missionaries.
The last on the list is Germany's Anna Schäfer, who always wanted to be a missionary. In 1901 she suffered burns on her legs, she was then bedridden for 24 years and offered her pain for the salvation of souls.
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Saturday, November 19, 2011
The Most Important Thing
Before it is a movie about sports, before it is about determination and an inspiring story about an underdog, it is a love story. Rocky is first and foremost a love story. Love -- love is the most important thing. And because it is, Rocky is actually a winner at the end. It is love which makes us a world champion.
They've known each other for a long time, both thought by others and themselves to be losers in life. And when they go on their first date, shortly before Thanksgiving and before Rocky has been offered a shot at the championship, it really is one of the more charming love scenes in film.
Love is life. But, eventually the life of the one we love will end. By the time of Rocky Balboa, Adrian has died, their son is struggling in his life, and Paulie is broken and lost.
Love is life. As we discussed below, love is not always easy -- life is not always easy. But it is necessary to go on, to not let yourself get beaten down. That "is how winning is done," in life and in love.
They've known each other for a long time, both thought by others and themselves to be losers in life. And when they go on their first date, shortly before Thanksgiving and before Rocky has been offered a shot at the championship, it really is one of the more charming love scenes in film.
Love is life. But, eventually the life of the one we love will end. By the time of Rocky Balboa, Adrian has died, their son is struggling in his life, and Paulie is broken and lost.
Love is life. As we discussed below, love is not always easy -- life is not always easy. But it is necessary to go on, to not let yourself get beaten down. That "is how winning is done," in life and in love.
Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It's a very mean and nasty place and I don't care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard ya hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done!But when life, or love, seeks to beat us down, we do not have to fight the fight alone. We don't have to take the hits alone or try to move forward alone. As the very first scene in Rocky shows, which begins with a painting of Christ before panning down to a fight, we have Someone in our corner ready to help.
Now if you know what you're worth then go out and get what you're worth. But ya gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain't where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody! Cowards do that and that ain't you! You're better than that!
I'm always gonna love you no matter what. No matter what happens. You're my son and you're my blood. You're the best thing in my life. But until you start believing in yourself, ya ain't gonna have a life. Don't forget to visit your mother.
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Monday, November 14, 2011
An Encyclical on Human Love
All this talk about marriage, but what about sex? Often in discussions about Church teachings on marriage and family, the issues of sex and contraception, etc., are more or less front and center, and practically nothing has been said here about them before now. Even when, in the discussions, the terms "unitive" and "fruitful" have been used below, there has been no talk of sex, only love -- but aren't those components primarily about sex?
Unfortunately, there is a great deal of confusion about the Church's teachings on human sexuality. Much of that confusion is caused by a hyper-sexualized culture that has been corrupted by a utilitarian mind-set, but some of that confusion is brought about by the manner of presentation of those teachings, especially with respect to Humanae Vitae, as well as Pope John Paul II's Theology of the Body.
Properly understood, the Church's teachings on human sexuality are not unique, stand-alone teachings -- there is no reinvention of the moral wheel when it comes to human sexuality. Rather, if we understand what love is, if we come to learn about and know what authentic love is, if we simply truly and fully love the other, then all the sexual issues will take care of themselves.
Unfortunately, there is a great deal of confusion about the Church's teachings on human sexuality. Much of that confusion is caused by a hyper-sexualized culture that has been corrupted by a utilitarian mind-set, but some of that confusion is brought about by the manner of presentation of those teachings, especially with respect to Humanae Vitae, as well as Pope John Paul II's Theology of the Body.
Properly understood, the Church's teachings on human sexuality are not unique, stand-alone teachings -- there is no reinvention of the moral wheel when it comes to human sexuality. Rather, if we understand what love is, if we come to learn about and know what authentic love is, if we simply truly and fully love the other, then all the sexual issues will take care of themselves.
The Truth of the Encyclical Humanae Vitae.
by Karol Cardinal Wojtyla, Archbishop of Krakow, Poland
as published in L'Osservatore Romano
Weekly Edition in English
16 January 1969, page 6
A correct and penetrating analysis of conjugal love presupposes an exact idea of marriage itself. Marriage is not "the product of unconscious natural forces" (H.v. 8), it is "the communion of beings" (H.v. 8) based on their reciprocal gift of self.
And for this reason, a correct judgment of responsible parenthood presupposes "an integral vision of man and of his vocation" (H.v. 7). To acquire such a judgment "the partial perspectives — whether of the biological, psychological, demographic or sociological orders" (H.v. 7) are not at all sufficient. None of these views can constitute a basis for an adequate and just answer to the questions [about regulating birth]. Every answer that comes from a partial view can only be a partial one.
In order to find an adequate answer, it is necessary to have a correct vision of man as a being, since marriage establishes a communion of beings which is born and brought about through their mutual gift of self. Conjugal love is characterized by the elements which result from such a communion of beings and which correspond to the personal dignity of the man and the woman, of the husband and the wife.
It is a matter of total love, or love which involves the whole man: his sensitivity, his affectivity, and his spirituality, which must be both faithful and exclusive. This love "is not exhausted in the communion between husband and wife but it is destined to continue raising up new lives" (H.v. 9); it is therefore fruitful love. This loving communion of a married couple, through which they constitute, according to the words of Genesis 2, 24, "a single body" is a kind of condition of fruitfulness, a condition of procreation. This communion being a particular type — since it is corporeal, it is in the strict sense "sexual" — of realization of the conjugal communion between beings, must be brought about at the level of the person and must befit his dignity. It is on this basis that one must form an exact judgment of responsible parenthood. . . .
Parenthood which comes from love between persons is "responsible parenthood." One could say that in the Encyclical "Humanae vitae" responsible parenthood becomes the proper name for human procreation.
This basically positive judgment of responsible parenthood, however, requires some further explanation. . . . According to the doctrine of the Church, responsible parenthood is not and cannot be only the effect of a certain "technique" of conjugal collaboration: in fact, it has primarily and "per se" an ethical value. . . .
Love is the communion of persons. If parenthood, and responsible parenthood, correspond to this love, then the way of acting which leads to such parenthood, cannot be morally indifferent. In fact, it decides whether the sexual activity of the communion of persons is or is not authentic love. "By safeguarding both these essential aspects, the unitive and the procreative, the conjugal act preserves in its fullness the sense of true mutual love..." (H.v. 12). . . .
The encyclical of Paul VI as a document of the supreme Magisterium of the Church presents the teaching of the human and Christian ethic in one of its key points. The truth of "Humanae vitae" is therefore primarily a normative truth. It reminds us of the principles of morality, which constitute the objective norm. This norm is even written in the human heart . . .
The responsibility of parenthood, to which the entire encyclical is principally dedicated, itself speaks of [the value of human life, that is, of that life already conceived and blossoming in the living together of the married couple].
The fact that, in the encyclical, this value of life already conceived or in its origin is not examined within the framework of procreation as the purpose of marriage, but rather within the vision of the love and the responsibility of the partners, places the value of human life itself in a new light.
Man and woman in their matrimonial life together, which is a living together of persons, must in and of itself create a new human person. The conceiving of a person by means of persons — this is the just measure of values which must be used here. This is, at the same time, the just measure of the responsibility which must guide human parenthood. . . .
The encyclical "Humanae vitae" contains not only clear and explicit norms for married life, conscious parenthood and a correct regulation of birth, but through these norms, it indicates the values. It confirms their correct meaning and warns us against false meanings. It expresses a profound solicitude to safeguard man from the danger of altering the most fundamental values.
One of the most fundamental values is that of human love. Love has its source in God who "is Love." Paul VI places this revealed truth at the beginning of his penetrating analysis of conjugal love because it expresses the highest value which must be recognized in human love. Human love is rich in the experiences of which it consists, but its essential richness consists in being a communion of persons, that is of a man and a woman, in their mutual self-giving. Conjugal love is enriched through the authentic giving of one person to another person. It is this mutual giving of self which must not be altered. If in marriage there is to be the realization of authentic love of persons through the giving of bodies, that is, through the "bodily union" of the man and the woman, then out of regard for the value of the love itself, this mutual gift of self cannot be altered in any aspect of the interpersonal conjugal act. . . .
In various fields, man dominates nature and subordinates it to himself through the use of artificial means. The sum total of these means in a certain sense is equivalent to progress and civilization. In this field, however, where love between one person and another is expressed through the marital act, and where the person must authentically give himself (and "give" also means "to receive" reciprocally) the use of artificial means is equivalent to an alteration of the act of love. . . .
This love is also expressed in continence — even in periodic continence - since love is capable of giving up the marital act, but it cannot give up the authentic gift of the person. Renouncing the marital act can be in certain circumstances an authentic gift of self. Paul VI writes in this regard: "...this discipline which is proper to the purity of married couples, far from harming conjugal love, rather confers on it a higher human value" (H.v. 21).
In expressing the thoughtful concern for the authentic value of human love, the encyclical "Humanae vitae" addresses man and calls upon his sense of dignity as a person. In fact, man and woman in marriage must realize this love, according to its authentic value. The capacity for such love and the capacity for the authentic giving of self demand from both partners the sense of personal dignity. The experience of sexual value must be permeated by a vivid awareness of the value of the person. . . .
The questions which agitate modern man "required from the teaching authority of the Church a new and deeper reflection upon the principles of the moral teaching on marriage: a teaching founded on the natural law, illuminated and enriched by divine Revelation." Revelation as the expression of the eternal thought of God permits us, and at the same time commands us, to consider marriage as an institution for transmitting human life, in which the marriage partners are "the free and responsible collaborators of God the creator" (H.v. 1).
Christ himself confirmed this perpetual dignity of married persons and He inserted the totality of married life into the work of the Redemption, and He included it in the sacramental order. By the sacrament of Marriage "husband and wife are strengthened and as it were consecrated for the faithful accomplishment of their proper duties, for the carrying out of their proper vocation even to perfection, and the Christian witness which is proper to them before the whole world" (H.v. 25). Since the doctrine of Christian morality was set forth in the encyclical, the doctrine of responsible parenthood understood as the just expression of conjugal love and of the dignity of the human person, constitutes an important component of the Christian witness. . . .
Saturday, November 12, 2011
To Love is to Suffer
All this talk about suffering caused by love. It's all so serious! Can't we have a few light-hearded moments? Can't we lighten the mood a bit here?
I hope you're getting this down.
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I hope you're getting this down.
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Friday, November 11, 2011
Beauty in the Suffering Caused by Love
Pope Benedict has said often that there can be no love without suffering. If one loves, one must suffer, be it, for example, the suffering caused by loss of the other or by having to come out of the safety of our shells, vulnerable to infidelity or injury done by the one we love or by love not being returned. If we did not love, none of these things would matter, but because we do love, or at least seek to love, instead of the joy we want, we get pain.
In this famous scene, Canio, who plays a clown in a traveling troupe of players, has just learned that his wife Nedda, whom he dearly loves, no longer loves him, if she ever did, but loves another instead. But despite his suffering, it is necessary to go on. The show goes on. The people want their laughs. Life goes on. Regardless of what has been said before about love, even with tears streaming down his face because his heart is tragically broken, even though his love is smashed on the rocks, life demands that he go and play the clown.
Recitar! Mentre preso dal delirio, non so più quel che dico, e quel che faccio!
Eppur è d'uopo, sforzati!
Bah! Sei tu forse un uom? Tu se' Pagliaccio!
(Act! While in delirium, I no longer know what I say, or what I do!
And yet it's necessary... make an effort!
Bah! Are you not a man? You are a clown!)
Vesti la giubba, e la faccia infarina.
La gente paga, e rider vuole qua.
E se Arlecchin t'invola Colombina,
ridi, Pagliaccio, e ognun applaudirà!
Tramuta in lazzi lo spasmo ed il pianto
in una smorfia il singhiozzo e 'l dolor, Ah!
(Put on your costume, powder your face.
The people pay to be here, and they want to laugh.
And if Harlequin shall steal your Columbina,
laugh, clown, so the crowd will cheer!
Turn your distress and tears into jest,
your pain and sobbing into a funny face – Ah!)
Ridi, Pagliaccio, sul tuo amore infranto!
Ridi del duol, che t'avvelena il cor!
(Laugh, clown, at your broken love!
Laugh at the grief that poisons your heart!)
In the end, even the “yes” to love is a source of suffering, because love always requires expropriations of my “I,” in which I allow myself to be pruned and wounded. Love simply cannot exist without this painful renunciation of myself, for otherwise it becomes pure selfishness and thereby ceases to be love. . . .To love is to suffer. But we are not alone in that suffering. Pope Benedict also says that there can be, paradoxically, a kind of beauty in the ugliness of that suffering, as Luciano Pavarotti demonstrates below. And because there can be beauty in the pain of love, there is again hope -- hope that it is not all pain, not all anguish, but that the suffering can be transcended and transformed.
[Yet,] in all human suffering we are joined by One who experiences and carries that suffering with us; hence con-solatio is present in all suffering, the consolation of God's compassionate love — and so the star of hope rises. (Spe Salvi 38, 39)
In [marital] crises, in bearing the moment in which it seems that no more can be borne, new doors and a new beauty of love truly open. A beauty consisting of harmony alone is not true beauty. Something is missing, it becomes insufficient. True beauty also needs contrast. Darkness and light complement each other. Even a grape, in order to ripen, does not only need the sun but also the rain, not only the day but also the night. . . .It is not only in "Per la gloria d'adorarvi" that Luciano Pavarotti makes the suffering born of love sound beautiful. There is also Pagliacci.
We must put up with and transcend this suffering. Only in this way is life enriched. I believe that the fact the Lord bears the stigmata for eternity has a symbolic value. As an expression of the atrocity of suffering and death, today the stigmata are seals of Christ's victory, of the full beauty of his victory and his love for us. We must accept, both as priests and as married persons, the need to put up with the crises of otherness, of the other, the crisis in which it seems that it is no longer possible to stay together.
Husbands and wives must learn to move ahead together, also for love of the children, and thus be newly acquainted with one another, love one another anew with a love far deeper and far truer. So it is that on a long journey, with its suffering, love truly matures. (Pope Benedict, Meeting with the priests of the Italian Diocese of Albano, August 31, 2006)
In this famous scene, Canio, who plays a clown in a traveling troupe of players, has just learned that his wife Nedda, whom he dearly loves, no longer loves him, if she ever did, but loves another instead. But despite his suffering, it is necessary to go on. The show goes on. The people want their laughs. Life goes on. Regardless of what has been said before about love, even with tears streaming down his face because his heart is tragically broken, even though his love is smashed on the rocks, life demands that he go and play the clown.
Recitar! Mentre preso dal delirio, non so più quel che dico, e quel che faccio!
Eppur è d'uopo, sforzati!
Bah! Sei tu forse un uom? Tu se' Pagliaccio!
(Act! While in delirium, I no longer know what I say, or what I do!
And yet it's necessary... make an effort!
Bah! Are you not a man? You are a clown!)
Vesti la giubba, e la faccia infarina.
La gente paga, e rider vuole qua.
E se Arlecchin t'invola Colombina,
ridi, Pagliaccio, e ognun applaudirà!
Tramuta in lazzi lo spasmo ed il pianto
in una smorfia il singhiozzo e 'l dolor, Ah!
(Put on your costume, powder your face.
The people pay to be here, and they want to laugh.
And if Harlequin shall steal your Columbina,
laugh, clown, so the crowd will cheer!
Turn your distress and tears into jest,
your pain and sobbing into a funny face – Ah!)
Ridi, Pagliaccio, sul tuo amore infranto!
Ridi del duol, che t'avvelena il cor!
(Laugh, clown, at your broken love!
Laugh at the grief that poisons your heart!)
Per la gloria d'adorarvi (For the glory of adoring you)
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--Ernesto's aria in Griselda, by Giovanni Bononcini.
As demonstrated here by the voice of Luciano Pavarotti, even when love involves pain and suffering, there still can be beauty.
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Per la gloria d'adorarvi, voglio amarvi, o luci care.
Per la gloria d'adorarvi, voglio amarvi, o luci care.
Amando penero, ma sempre v'amerro.
Si, si, nel mio penare.
Amando penero, ma sempre v'amerro.
Si, si, nel mio penare.
Penerò, v'amerò, luci care.
Penerò, v'amerò, luci care.
(For the glory of adoring you, I love you, Oh dear light.
For the glory of adoring you, I love you, Oh dear light.
Loving I will suffer, but always I will love you.
Yes, yes, in my suffering.
Loving I will suffer, but always I will love you.
Yes, yes, in my suffering.
Suffering, I love you, my dear light.
Suffering, I love you, my dear light.)
Senza speme di diletto, vano affetto, e` sospirare.
Senza speme di diletto, vano affetto, e` sospirare.
Ma i vostri dolci rai,
Chi vagheggiar può mai e non, e non v'amare?
Ma i vostri dolci rai,
Chi vagheggiar può mai e non, e non v'amare?
Penerò, v'amerò, luci care.
Penerò, v'amerò, luci care!
(Without hope of delight is to long for vain affection.
Without hope of delight is to long for vain affection.
But your sweet rays,
Who could ever contemplate and not, and not love you?
But your sweet rays,
Who could ever contemplate and not, and not love you?
Suffering, I love you, my dear light.
Suffering, I love you, my dear light.)
Per la gloria d'adorarvi, voglio amarvi, o luci care.
Amando penero, ma sempre v'amerro.
Si, si, nel mio penare.
Amando penero, ma sempre v'amerro.
Si, si, nel mio penare.
Penerò, v'amerò, luci care.
Penerò, v'amerò, luci care.
(For the glory of adoring you, I love you, Oh dear light.
For the glory of adoring you, I love you, Oh dear light.
Loving I will suffer, but always I will love you.
Yes, yes, in my suffering.
Loving I will suffer, but always I will love you.
Yes, yes, in my suffering.
Suffering, I love you, my dear light.
Suffering, I love you, my dear light.)
Senza speme di diletto, vano affetto, e` sospirare.
Senza speme di diletto, vano affetto, e` sospirare.
Ma i vostri dolci rai,
Chi vagheggiar può mai e non, e non v'amare?
Ma i vostri dolci rai,
Chi vagheggiar può mai e non, e non v'amare?
Penerò, v'amerò, luci care.
Penerò, v'amerò, luci care!
(Without hope of delight is to long for vain affection.
Without hope of delight is to long for vain affection.
But your sweet rays,
Who could ever contemplate and not, and not love you?
But your sweet rays,
Who could ever contemplate and not, and not love you?
Suffering, I love you, my dear light.
Suffering, I love you, my dear light.)
--Ernesto's aria in Griselda, by Giovanni Bononcini.
As demonstrated here by the voice of Luciano Pavarotti, even when love involves pain and suffering, there still can be beauty.
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Thursday, November 10, 2011
What is Love?
We say it all the time -- "I love you." We think it all the time. And yet, we spend our entire lifetimes trying to figure out what love is. And some of us never figure out what it is. Some of us are clueless as to what love really is, and we spend our lifetimes looking and looking for it, in constant misery and unhappiness.
Below we asked, What is this thing called “love”? And now, here are a few possible answers to the question of love --
1. "The question of love is one that cannot be evaded. Whether or not you claim to be interested in it, from the moment you are alive you are bound to be concerned with love, because love is not just something that happens to you: It is a certain special way of being alive. Love is, in fact, an intensification of life, a completeness, a fullness, a wholeness of life." -Thomas Merton
2. "Love conquers all." -Virgil
3. "One word frees us of all the weight and pain in life. That word is Love." -Sophocles
4. (a) "Love is the joy of the good, the wonder of the wise, the amazement of the gods." (b) "At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet." -Plato
5. "Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies." -Aristotle
6. "Since love grows within you, so beauty grows. For love is the beauty of the soul." -St. Augustine
7. "A life’s worth, in the end, isn’t measured in hours, or dollars. It’s measured by the amount of love exchanged along the way." -Douglas C. Means
8. "The essential sadness is to go through life without loving. But it would be almost equally sad to leave this world without ever telling those you loved that you love them." -Author Unknown
9. "Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own." -Robert Heinlein
10. "True love is eternal, infinite, and always like itself. It is equal and pure, without violent demonstrations: it is seen with white hairs and is always young in the heart." -Honore de Balzac
11. "When traveling the path of life, and finding love along the way, everything looks new and different. Little do you know it is the same old landscape you used to see all of the time; Love has just given you new eyes." -Author Unknown
12. "Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead. The consciousness of loving and being loved brings a warmth and a richness to life that nothing else can bring. Who, being loved, is poor?" -Oscar Wilde
13. “If you have the will to love, you already give proof that you love. What counts is the will to love.” -St. Maximilian Kolbe
14. "You come to love not by finding the perfect person, but by seeing an imperfect person perfectly." -Sam Keen
15. "We don't love qualities, we love persons; sometimes by reason of their defects as well as of their qualities." -Jacques Maritain
16. "You don't love a woman because she's beautiful; she is beautiful because you love her." -Author Unknown
17. "A happy man marries the girl he loves; a happier man loves the girl he marries." -Author Unknown
18. "Love means to love that which is unlovable; or it is no virtue at all." -G.K. Chesterton
19. “We can genuinely love someone and be captivated by that person’s charm and wit, intelligence and sensitivity, unselfishness and caring —- and soon we feel a responsibility to overhaul what we think should be changed. This can tear the love relationship apart.” -Dianne Bergant
20. (a) “Falling in love is the first, and sadly for some couples the only, season of love. Often couples confuse infatuation with love. A husband might see his wife as he would like her to be —- a warm, caring person who always keeps his needs foremost in her mind. Who she truly is -— a woman who can be angry and upset with him at times -— is irrelevant.” (b) “Many couples miss the rollercoaster highs and lows of early romantic love. But as their love deepens, they will enjoy the beauty of phileo — the bond of friendship. Friendship love combines the intensity of romance with the stability of knowing a spouse is committed to learning how to appreciate you for who you are rather than what he or she thinks you should be. In this second season of love, couples begin to understand that love is a deliberate choice — not merely a feeling.” (c) “Real love involves an unconditional commitment to an imperfect person. That's when agape, or sacrificial love, begins to take root.” -Gary J. Oliver
21. “So often when we say ‘I love you,’ we say it with a huge ‘I’ and a small ‘you.’” -Antony, Russian Orthodox Archbishop of England
22. “Each day I love you more; today more than yesterday and less than tomorrow.” -Rosemonde Gérard
23. “Love is the magician, the enchanter, that changes worthless things to joy, and makes right royal kings and queens of common clay. It is the perfume of that wondrous flower, the heart, and without that sacred passion, that divine swoon, we are less than beasts; but with it, earth is heaven, and we are gods.” -Robert Green Ingersoll
24. “Jump out the window if you are the object of passion. Flee it if you feel it. Passion goes, boredom remains.” -Gabrielle (“Coco”) Chanel
25. "Fear? What is there to fear in love? Love is the very reason we live. To fear love is to lose all sense of living, And if we cannot love, then why have we been put here? Fearing love is like being afraid of breathing. It's not something to be scared of. It's something so natural that no one can resist." -Tyler's speech from "A Heartbeat Away"
26. “Many people have the mistaken idea that if you have married the right person you may expect to go on 'being in love' forever. As a result, when they find they are not, they think this proves they have made a mistake and are entitled to a change -— not realizing that, when they have changed, the glamour will presently go out of the new love just as it went out of the old one. In this department of life, as in every other, thrills come at the beginning and do not last. . . . Let the thrill go — let it die away — go on through that period of death into the quieter interest and happiness that follow — and you will find you are living in a world of new thrills all the time." –C.S. Lewis
27. "Infatuation is when you think he's as gorgeous as Robert Redford, as pure as Solzhenitsyn, as funny as Woody Allen, as athletic as Jimmy Connors and as smart as Albert Einstein. Love is when you realize that he's as gorgeous as Woody Allen, as smart as Jimmy Connors, as funny as Solzhenitsyn, as athletic as Albert Einstein and nothing like Robert Redford in any category — but you'll take him anyway." -Judith Voist
28. "It's not that I can't live without you, it's that I don't even want to try." -Author Unknown
29. "To love a person is to learn the song that is in their heart, and to sing it to them when they have forgotten." –Author Unknown
30. First Person -- “I have to love me first before I can go out and love others. Love has to be selfish. Isn’t that supposed to be the beginning of wisdom: ‘know thyself’? Doesn’t the Bible tell me I must love my neighbor as myself?”
Second Person -- “Poppycock! That’s not love. You don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re all smoke and mirrors. The way you toss it around, love becomes just another four-letter word. Love is giving, not satisfying one’s self. It’s reaching out to others, feeling for them, wanting to do for them — first. Then, as a resulting boon, favoring one’s self as a sidebar.” –Author Unknown
31. “Love is an old-fashioned, contemporary-eternal virtue. All the variations, the man-made interpretations, watered-down or blown-up versions for sale on today’s market, are just fluff that the winds of eternity will blow away. Love reflects God, and God is not to be mocked.” -Alma Roberts Giordan
32. “Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being 'in love' which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two.” -Captain Corelli's Mandolin
33. (a) "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye." (b) "True love begins when nothing is looked for in return." -Antoine de Saint-Exupery
34. "Spread love everywhere you go: first of all in your own house. Give love to your children, to your wife or husband, to a next door neighbor... Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God's kindness; kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile, kindness in your warm greeting." -Mother Teresa
35. "Love is something eternal; the aspect may change, but not the essence." -Vincent van Gogh
36. “Love is a symbol of eternity. It wipes out all sense of time, destroying all memory of a beginning and all fear of an end.” -- Author Unknown
37. “Love feels no burden, regards not labors, strives toward more than it attains, argues not of impossibility, since it believes that it may and can do all things. Therefore it avails for all things, and fulfils and accomplishes much where one not a lover falls and lies helpless.” -- Thomas a Kempis
38. "Love means the body, the soul, the life, the entire being. We feel love as we feel the warmth of our blood, we breathe love as we breathe air, we hold it in ourselves as we hold our thoughts. Nothing more exists for us." -Guy De Maupassant
39. (a) "Two souls with but a single thought, two hearts that beat as one." (b) "I cannot exist without you. I am forgetful of everything but seeing you again. My life seems to stop there, I see no further. You have absorb'd me. I have a sensation at the present moment as though I were dissolving. I have been astonished that men could die martyrs for religion... I have shudder'd at it... I shudder no more. I could be martyr'd for my religion: Love is my religion. I could die for that. I could die for you. My creed is love, and you are its only tenet. You have ravish'd me away by a power I cannot resist." -John Keats
40. “What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined together to strengthen each other in all labour, to minister to each other in all sorrow, to share with each other in all gladness, to be one with each other in the silent unspoken memories? I like not only to be loved, but to be told that I am loved." -George Elliot
41. "Love is everything it's cracked up to be. That's why people are so cynical about it...It really is worth fighting for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk everything, you risk even more." - Erica Jong
42. “Even though still in bed, my thoughts go out to you, my Immortal Beloved, now and then joyfully, then sadly, waiting to learn whether or not fate will hear our prayer - To face life I must live altogether with you or never see you - Yes, I am resolved to be a wanderer abroad until I can fly to your arms and say that I have found my true home, and enfolded in your arms can let my soul be wafted to the realm of blessed spirits -- alas, unhappily it must be so -- You will become composed, the more so as you know that I am faithful to you; No one else can ever possess my heart - never - never - Oh God, why must one be separated from her who is so dear. . . . Your love has made me the happiest and the unhappiest of mortals . . . Be calm; for only by calm consideration of our lives can we achieve our purpose to live together - Be calm - love me - Today - yesterday - what tearful longing for you - for you - you - my life - my all - all good wishes to you. Oh continue to love me - never misjudge the most faithful heart of your lover. Ever yours, ever mine, ever ours.” –Ludwig van Beethoven
43. "To love is to receive a glimpse of heaven." -Karen Sunde
44. "Where love is, no room is too small." -The Talmud
45. "Love is not blind -- it sees more, not less. But because it sees more, it is willing to see less." --Rabbi J. Gordon
46. (a) "The reduction of the universe to a single being, the expansion of a single being even to God, this is love." (b) “To love another person is to see the face of God.” -Victor Hugo
47. "Perfect love is rare indeed - for to be a lover will require that you continually have the subtlety of the very wise, the flexibility of the child, the sensitivity of the artist, the understanding of the philosopher, the acceptance of the saint, the tolerance of the scholar and the fortitude of the certain." -Leo Buscaglia
48. "Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit." -Peter Ustinov
49. "Love means to commit oneself without guarantee, to give oneself completely in the hope that our love will produce love in the loved person. Love is an act of faith, and whoever is of little faith is also of little love." -Erich Fromm
50. “Every love is a giving birth, a conception that takes lover and beloved beyond themselves into an undiscovered country, a procreation. Love is always emigrant. . . . Love has no safe harbors, only interminable oceans. It must dare disturb the universe, and it will search out the expressions it needs for its work.” -David K. O’Connor
51. “The will of God is not an alien will, God’s will is not a heteronymous imposition that constricts the self, but is an invitation to the fulfillment of the self by living a life of love in response to the gift of love. Thus is eros purified and fulfilled.” -Fr. Richard John Neuhaus
52. (a) “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. / I love thee to the depth and breath and height / My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight / For the ends of Being and ideal Grace." (b) "Love doesn't make the world go round, love is what makes the ride worthwhile." -Elizabeth Barrett Browning
53. “Love does not just sit there, like a stone; it had to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new.” -Ursula LeGuin
54. “The market mentality has permeated even our understanding of relationships, so that we tend to think of ourselves and others as products rather than as persons. Love, then, becomes a form of ‘salesmanship.’ It is simply a matter of selling ourselves. We attempt to make ourselves as attractive as possible so that others might ‘invest’ in us. . . . More and more we are taught that we must live up to particular cultural expectations in order to earn the ‘love’ of another and be worthy of investment. . . And yet the Christian tradition provides an alternative vision. As Nouwen powerfully states, ‘everything that Jesus has done, said, and undergone is meant to show us that the love that we most long for is given to us by God not because we deserved it, but because God is a God of love.’ This is the message that we need to hear: God profoundly loves us, just as we are! Our task is to trust in that unmerited love.” -Bridget Burke Ravizza
55. “My lover is like a gazelle or a young stag. Here he stands behind our wall, gazing through the windows, peering through the lattices. My lover speaks; he says to me, ‘Arise, my beloved, my beautiful one, and come! For see, the winter is past, the rains are over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth, the time of pruning the vines has come, and the song of the dove is heard in our land. The fig tree puts forth its figs, and the vines, in bloom, give forth fragrance. Arise, my beloved, my beautiful one, and come!’” -Solomon, Song of Songs
56. “Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, love is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.” –St. Paul
57. “God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him. In this is love brought to perfection among us, that we have confidence on the day of judgment because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment, and so one who fears is not yet perfect in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ but hates his brother, he is a liar; for whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. This is the commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.” –St. John
58. (a) "You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments." (b) “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends.” –Jesus of Nazareth
59. "Do you love me? . . . Do you love me? . . . Do you love me? . . . Follow me." –Jesus of Nazareth
60. "And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make." - John Lennon and Paul McCartney
Out of the Mouths of Babes - Children's Thoughts on Love
61. "I think you're supposed to get shot with an arrow or something, but the rest of it isn't supposed to be so painful." -Manuel, age 8
62. "Love is the most important thing in the world, but baseball is pretty good too." -Greg, age 8
63. "No one is sure why it happens, but I heard it has something to do with how you smell - that's why perfume and deodorant is so popular." -Mae, age 9
64. "One way is to take the girl out to eat. Make sure it's something she likes to eat. French fries usually works for me." -Bart, age 9
65. "Don't do things like have smelly, green sneakers. You might get attention, but attention ain't the same thing as love." -Alonzo, age 9
66. “When a person gets kissed for the first time, they fall down and they don't get up for at least an hour." -Wendy, age 8
67. "If you want to be loved by somebody who isn't already in your family, it doesn't hurt to be beautiful." -Anita, age 8
68. "I look at kissing like this: Kissing is fine if you like it, but it's a free country and nobody should be forced to do it." -Michael, age 8
69. "Don't say you love somebody and then change your mind. Love isn't like picking what movie you want to watch." -Natalie, age 9
70. "I'm not rushing into being in love. I'm finding fourth grade hard enough." -Regina, age 10
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Letters on Love from Father Karol Wojtyla
In 1950, during his time as a university chaplain and priest at St. Florian's church, Father Karol Wojtyla established the first marriage preparation program in the history of the Archdiocese of Kraków, as well as one of the first in the world. Before then, most marriage "preparation" consisted of a meeting or two with a priest, and that mostly to discuss the ceremony itself. However, as George Weigel reports in Witness to Hope, Fr. Wojtyla "set out to create a pastoral program that systematically prepared young couples for Christian marriage and family life through religious reflection, theological education and a frank exploration of the practical and personal difficulties and opportunities of married life and child rearing." (p. 97)
In addition, a network of friendships formed around Fr. Wojtyla. He called this active social group of young people his Rodzinka (little family). Members called him "Wujek" (uncle), partly out of affection and partly because calling him "Father" in public might arouse the suspicions of the state secret police. Some of these young men and women fell in love and later married. Others simply sought the counsel of Fr. Wojtyla. One of these was Teresa Heydel, who exchanged letters with him on the question of love.
In addition, a network of friendships formed around Fr. Wojtyla. He called this active social group of young people his Rodzinka (little family). Members called him "Wujek" (uncle), partly out of affection and partly because calling him "Father" in public might arouse the suspicions of the state secret police. Some of these young men and women fell in love and later married. Others simply sought the counsel of Fr. Wojtyla. One of these was Teresa Heydel, who exchanged letters with him on the question of love.
December 1956The following month, Fr. Wojtyla wrote another letter to her about the nature of love and the human person.
Dear Teresa,
People like to think that Wujek would like to see everyone married. But I think this is a false picture. The most important problem is really something else. Everyone...lives, above all, for love. The ability to love authentically, not great intellectual capacity, constitutes the deepest part of a personality. It is no accident that the greatest commandment is to love. Authentic love leads us outside ourselves to affirming others: devoting oneself to the cause of man, to people, and, above all, to God. Marriage makes sense...if it gives one the opportunity for such love, if it evokes the ability and necessity of such loving, if it draws one out of the shell of individualism (various kinds) and egocentrism. It is not enough simply to want to accept such love. One must know how to give it, and it’s often not ready to be received. Many times it’s necessary to help it to be formed.
- Wujek
January 1957These ideas of love as gift, part of Karol Wojtyla's "personalist" ethic (which emphasizes respecting and loving others as "persons," and not using them as if they were "things," as is the case in utilitarianism), can be seen in The Jeweler's Shop and in Love and Responsibility, as well as in his later papal teachings. As Weigel summarizes in Witness to Hope, "This 'Law of Gift' was built into the human condition, he argued philosophically. Responsible self-giving, not self-assertion, was the road to human fulfillment. Wojtyla posed it not only as an ethic for Christians, but as a universal moral deman arising from the dynamics of the human person, who is truly a person only in relationship. A genuinely human existence was always coexistence, a meeting with others wisely." (pp. 136-37)
Dear Teresa,
Before I leave for Warsaw, I have to tell you a few things (think together with you): (1) I don’t want you ever to think this way: that life forces me to move away from the perspective of something that is better, riper, fuller, to something that is less good, less mature, less attractive. I am convinced that life is a constant development toward that which is better, more perfect — if there is no stagnation within us. (2) After many experiences and a lot of thinking, I am convinced that the (objective) starting point of love is the realization that I am needed by another. The person who objectively needs me most is also, for me, objectively, the person I most need. This is a fragment of life’s deep logic, and also a fragment of trusting in the Creator and in Providence. (3) People’s values are different and they come in different configurations. The great achievement is always to see values that others don’t see and to affirm them. The even greater achievement is to bring out of people the values that would perish without us. In the same way, we bring our values out in ourselves. (4) This is what I wanted to write you. Don’t ever think that I want to cut short your way. I want your way.
- Wujek
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
The Unity of the Two Through the Gift of Self
In Act One of his play, The Jeweler's Shop, Blessed Karol Wojtyla tells the story of Andrew and Teresa, who had known each other for quite some time before they realized their love for each other. Andrew, in fact, had avoided her, even seeking to evade those thoughts of her that kept persisting in his mind. And when he proposed marriage, it was in a curious manner.
Such a gift of self in love necessarily requires a coming out of self, a letting go of ego, to allow the other to be part of you, and you a part of the other, "the will of Teresa being Andrew, the will of Andrew being Teresa." Such love is not something that "just happens," and the gift of self cannot be compelled. Love is choice. Love is an act of freedom - "a freedom, and sometimes frenzy, the frenzy of freedom trapped in [a] tangle. And in all this – love, which springs from freedom, as water springs from an oblique rift in the earth."
Teresa - Andrew has chosen me and asked for my hand. . . . We were just walking on the right side of the market square when Andrew turned around and said, "Do you want to be my life's companion?" That's what he said. He didn't say: do you want to be my wife, but: my life's companion. What he intended to say must have been thought over. He said it looking ahead . . . as if to signify that in front of us was a road whose end could not be seen. . . ."There must have been something in Teresa that suited my personality. . . . It was not an assent independent of an act of will." Love is a choice. Even if the initial attraction to another is based on "something" in the other, something we perhaps cannot immediately put our finger on, as with Christopher, still the feeling of emotion stemming from such intangible attraction is not itself love. "When the wave of emotion subsides, what remains will be important." We must not confuse that initial rush and thrill that we might for being love, such emotions come and go, as happened with Anna and Stefan. Rather, properly understood, the occasion presents the choice to proceed further, to give our assent to love or not. It is an act of the will to make a gift of love or not give.
Andrew – I don't think I even know what "love at first sight" means. After a time, I realized that she had come into the focus of my attention, I mean, I had to be interested in her. . . . There must have been something in Teresa that suited my personality. . . . It was not an assent independent of an act of will. I simply resisted sensation and the appeal of the senses, for I knew that otherwise I would never really leave my "ego" and reach the other person - but that meant an effort, for my senses fed at every step on the charms of the women I met. . . . gradually, I learned to value beauty accessible to the mind, that is to say, truth. . . .
I had wanted to regard love as passion, as an emotion to surpass all – I had believed in the absolute of emotion. And that is why I could not grasp the basis of that strange persistence of Teresa in me, the cause of her presence, the assurance of her place in my “ego,” or what creates around her that strange resonance, that feeling “you ought to.” . . . love can be a collision in which two selves realize profoundly that they ought to belong to each other, even though they have no convenient moods and sensations. It is one of these processes in the universe which bring a synthesis, unite what was divided, broaden and enrich what was limited and narrow.
Teresa - If I was not quite unprepared for his proposal it was because I felt that somehow I was the right one for him, and that I supposed I could love him. Being aware of that, I must already have loved him. . . .
Andrew – The rings in the window appealed to us with a strange force. Now, they are just artifacts of precious metal, but it will be so only until that moment when I put one of them on Teresa’s finger, and she puts the other on mine. . . . The weddings rings did not stay in the window. The jeweler looked long into our eyes. Testing for the last time the fineness of precious metal, he spoke seriously, deep thoughts, which remained strangely in my memory.
The Jeweler – The weight of these golden rings is not the weight of metal, but the proper weight of man, each of you separately and both together. Ah, man’s own weight, the proper weight of man! Can it be at once heavier, and yet more intangible? It is the weight of constant gravity, riveted to a short flight. The flight has the shape of a spiral, an ellipse – and the shape of the heart.
Ah, the proper weight of man! This rift, this tangle, this ultimate depth – this clinging, when it is so hard to unstick heart and thought. And in all this – freedom, a freedom, and sometimes frenzy, the frenzy of freedom trapped in this tangle. And in all this – love, which springs from freedom, as water springs from an oblique rift in the earth. This is man! He is not transparent, not monumental, not simple, in fact he is poor. This is one man – and what about two people, four, a hundred, a million – multiply all this (multiply the greatness by the weakness), and you will have the product of humanity, the product of human life. . . .
Chorus – New people – Teresa and Andrew – two until now, but still not one, one from now on, though still two. . . . Ah, how man thirsts for feelings, how people thirst for intimacy. Teresa and Andrew. . . . Love – love pulsating in brows, in man becomes thought and will: the will of Teresa being Andrew, the will of Andrew being Teresa. . . .
How can it be done, Teresa, for you to stay in Andrew forever? How can it be done, Andrew, for you to stay in Teresa forever? Since man will not endure in man and man will not suffice.
Body – thought passes through it, is not satisfied in the body – and love passes through it. . . .
Andrew – And the jeweler, as I have already mentioned, looked at us in a peculiar way. His gaze was at once gentle and penetrating. I had a feeling he was watching us while he was selecting and weighing the rings. He then put them on our fingers to try them. I had the feeling that he was seeking our hearts with his eyes and delving into our past. Does he encompass the future too? The expression of his eyes combined warmth with determination. The future for us remains an unknown quantity, which we now accept without anxiety. Love has overcome anxiety. The future depends on love.
Teresa - The future depends on love.
Andrew – At one point, my eyes once more met the gaze of the old jeweler. I felt just then that His gaze was not only sounding our hearts, but also trying to impart something to us. We found ourselves not only on the level of His gaze, but also on the level of His life. Our whole existence stood before Him. His eyes were flashing signals which we were not able to receive fully just then, as once we had been unable to receive fully the signals in the mountains – and yet, they reached to our inner hearts. And somehow we went in their direction, and they covered the fabric of our whole lives. . . .
[Act Three - many years later, Christopher, the son of Andrew and Teresa, considers his own love for Monica, the daughter of Anna and Stefan]
Christopher – You have compelled me, Monica, to grasp my existence as an untold completeness, enhanced and delineated because you have drawn near. . . . We have to accept the fact that love weaves itself into our fate. . . . If I could take your freezing hands, warm them with my hands – a unity will emerge, a vision of new existence, which will embrace us both. . . .
Love is a constant challenge, thrown to us by God, thrown, I think, so that we should challenge fate. . . .
I cannot go beyond you. One does not love a person for his “easy character.” Why does one love at all? What do I love you for, Monica? Don’t ask me to answer. I couldn’t say. Love outdistances its object, or approaches it so closely that it is almost lost from view. Man must then think differently, must leave behind cold deliberations – and in that “hot thinking,” one question is important: Is it creative?
But even that he cannot tell, since he is so close to his object. When the wave of emotion subsides, what remains will be important.
_______________
Excerpts from The Jeweler's Shop (1960), translated by Boleslaw Taborksi (1980)
Such a gift of self in love necessarily requires a coming out of self, a letting go of ego, to allow the other to be part of you, and you a part of the other, "the will of Teresa being Andrew, the will of Andrew being Teresa." Such love is not something that "just happens," and the gift of self cannot be compelled. Love is choice. Love is an act of freedom - "a freedom, and sometimes frenzy, the frenzy of freedom trapped in [a] tangle. And in all this – love, which springs from freedom, as water springs from an oblique rift in the earth."
Monday, November 7, 2011
Love is Demanding: Finding Oneself by Giving Oneself
Letter to Families
Blessed Pope John Paul II
November 22, 1981
Blessed Pope John Paul II
November 22, 1981
The unity of the two
8. The Second Vatican Council, in speaking of the likeness of God, uses extremely significant terms. It refers not only to the divine image and likeness which every human being as such already possesses, but also and primarily to "a certain similarity between the union of the divine persons and the union of God's children in truth and love."
This rich and meaningful formulation first of all confirms what is central to the identity of every man and every woman. This identity consists in the capacity to live in truth and love; even more, it consists in the need of truth and love as an essential dimension of the life of the person. Man's need for truth and love opens him both to God and to creatures: it opens him to other people, to life "in communion," and in particular to marriage and to the family. In the words of the Council, the "communion" of persons is drawn in a certain sense from the mystery of the Trinitarian "We," and therefore "conjugal communion" also refers to this mystery. The family, which originates in the love of man and woman, ultimately derives from the mystery of God. This conforms to the innermost being of man and woman, to their innate and authentic dignity as persons.
In marriage, man and woman are so firmly united as to become — to use the words of the Book of Genesis — "one flesh" (Gen 2:24). Male and female in their physical constitution, the two human subjects, even though physically different, share equally in the capacity to live "in truth and love." This capacity, characteristic of the human being as a person, has at the same time both a spiritual and a bodily dimension. It is also through the body that man and woman are predisposed to form a "communion of persons" in marriage. . . .
The sincere gift of self
11. After affirming that man is the only creature on earth which God willed for itself, the Council immediately goes on to say that he cannot "fully find himself except through a sincere gift of self." This might appear to be a contradiction, but in fact it is not. Instead it is the magnificent paradox of human existence: an existence called to serve the truth in love. Love causes man to find fulfillment through the sincere gift of self. To love means to give and to receive something which can be neither bought nor sold, but only given freely and mutually.
By its very nature, the gift of the person must be lasting and irrevocable. The indissolubility of marriage flows in the first place from the very essence of that gift: the gift of one person to another person. This reciprocal giving of self reveals the spousal nature of love. In their marital consent the bride and groom call each other by name: "I... take you... as my wife (as my husband) and I promise to be true to you... for all the days of my life." A gift such as this involves an obligation much more serious and profound than anything which might be "purchased" in any way and at any price. Kneeling before the Father, from whom all fatherhood and motherhood come, the future parents come to realize that they have been "redeemed." They have been purchased at great cost, by the price of the most sincere gift of all, the blood of Christ of which they partake through the Sacrament. . . .
It is the Gospel truth concerning the gift of self, without which the person cannot "fully find himself," which makes possible an appreciation of how profoundly this "sincere gift" is rooted in the gift of God, Creator and Redeemer, and in the "grace of the Holy Spirit" which the celebrant during the Rite of Marriage prays will be "poured out" on the spouses. Without such an "outpouring," it would be very difficult to understand all this and to carry it out as man's vocation. Yet how many people understand this intuitively! Many men and women make this truth their own, coming to discern that only in this truth do they encounter "the Truth and the Life" (Jn 14:6). Without this truth, the life of the spouses and of the family will not succeed in attaining a fully human meaning. . . .
Love is demanding
14. Love is true when it creates the good of persons and of communities; it creates that good and gives it to others. Only the one who is able to be demanding with himself in the name of love can also demand love from others. Love is demanding. It makes demands in all human situations; it is even more demanding in the case of those who are open to the Gospel. Is this not what Christ proclaims in "His" commandment? Nowadays people need to rediscover this demanding love, for it is the truly firm foundation of the family, a foundation able to "endure all things." According to the Apostle, love is not able to "endure all things" if it yields to "jealousies," or if it is "boastful... arrogant or rude." True love, St. Paul teaches, is different: "Love believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things" (1 Cor 13:5-7). This is the very love which "endures all things." At work within it is the power and strength of God Himself, who "is love." (1 Jn 4:8, 16) At work within it is also the power and strength of Christ, the Redeemer of man and Savior of the world. . . .
The hymn to love in the First Letter to the Corinthians remains the Magna Charta of the civilization of love. In this concept, what is important is not so much individual actions (whether selfish or altruistic), so much as the radical acceptance of the understanding of man as a person who "finds himself" by making a sincere gift of self. A gift is, obviously, "for others": this is the most important dimension of the civilization of love.
We thus come to the very heart of the Gospel truth about freedom. The person realizes himself by the exercise of freedom in truth. Freedom cannot be understood as a license to do absolutely anything: it means a gift of self. Even more: it means an interior discipline of the gift. The idea of gift contains not only the free initiative of the subject, but also the aspect of duty. All this is made real in the "communion of persons." We find ourselves again at the very heart of each family. . . .
As we know, at the foundation of ethical utilitarianism there is the continual quest for "maximum" happiness. But this is a "utilitarian happiness," seen only as pleasure, as immediate gratification for the exclusive benefit of the individual, apart from or opposed to the objective demands of the true good.
The program of utilitarianism, based on an individualistic understanding of freedom — a freedom without responsibilities — is the opposite of love, even as an expression of human civilization considered as a whole. When this concept of freedom is embraced by society, and quickly allies itself with varied forms of human weakness, it soon proves a systematic and permanent threat to the family. In this regard, one could mention many dire consequences, which can be statistically verified, even though a great number of them are hidden in the hearts of men and women like painful, fresh wounds.
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