learning to love

one

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus teaches us to love the way God loves. 

He says: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who treat you badly… Treat others as you would like them to treat you… Give generously without seeking a return.”

Later, on during the Last Supper, he washed the feet of the Disciples and then said: “If I, then, the Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you should wash each other's feet… I give you a new commandment: love one another; just as I have loved you, you also must love one another.”

That is the call, that is the mission of life – learn to love the way God loves.

two

What is love?

Love is a choice to want some good for someone. There are two ways:

The first way is wanting some good for yourself. To be happy we need the good of relationship with God and others. We also need physical goods, such as sleep, nutrition, and exercise. And we need the good of accomplishment as well as truth and beauty. We seek our own personal happiness through the attainment of these good things. This is the way we love ourselves.

The second way to love is to want some good for someone else. So, for example, if I were to say, “I love my wife and my kids; I’d do anything for them,” it would indicate that what I desire is for my wife and kids to be happy. I want to help them attain the good things they need to be happy.

The ultimate means to happiness is not to focus on your happiness alone, but on the happiness of God and others – that is, to want good for them.

Only the person who loves, who makes someone else’s good his own and goes beyond self-centered limitations is the one who achieves the goal of life.

three

Growing in Love

Again, love is to want some good for someone. We should want good for ourselves, and for others.

But if we get stuck on the first, then we just become self-centered.

Instead, we should mature to a God-like love that works and sacrifices for the good of others.

Marriage and family are God’s normal plan for us to mature in love.

Again, these two loves, the first of which is self-focused and the second of which is other-focused, are complementary. We often begin with the first, but we must grow to the second.

Consider the love between a husband and wife. When one person says to the other, “I love you,” they normally mean a) “You make me happy,” and b) “I will try to help you get what you need to be  happy.”

It’s the second part that is hard because making someone else’s good your priority takes sacrifice. That is why the willingness to sacrifice your personal good for the good of someone else is the measure of love. The proof of charity is measured by sacrifice.

four

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus teaches us to love the way God loves, and that is hard. It’s the reason we reject the teachings of Jesus that call us to love the way God loves.

“If a man looks at a woman lustfully, he has already committed adultery with her in his heart” and “Everyone who divorces his wife, except for the case of an unlawful marriage, makes her an adulteress; and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”

Charity demands that if we get married, we continue to love and serve our spouses even when it’s hardest to love them. It’s a shame that today marriage, like religion, is so often treated as something a person sticks with “as long as it works for him.” Then, when the relationship between spouses becomes unpleasant, the standard response is simply to quit.

Too many people quit when it gets hard to love others. But that is precisely when we mature in love. Do we want others to make us happy or do we strive to make others happy? Is your love selfish or self-sacrificial, the true measure of a mature love?

five

God’s plan for marriage and family teaches us to love in two stages.

We often marry and have kids in pursuit of our own happiness. Then our love should mature to wanting the good, the happiness of our spouse and kids. Marriage and family is God’s plan for us to learn the art of charity through service and sacrifice. The husband shouldn’t be thinking so much about whether his wife is meeting his needs, but about how he’s supposed to lay down his life for her. The same goes for the wife. And of course, this will involve a lot of work and sacrifice and struggle. 

Remember, marriage is founded on the model of Christ’s love for the Church, and Christ showed that love by undergoing excruciating torment and death for the sake of His Spouse. The implication is that thinking of a marriage apart from sacrifice is like thinking of Christ apart from the Cross. The Cross is the expression of Love. Likewise our sacrifice is the proof of our love.