The Building of a Civilization of Love

The third area of commitment that comes with love is that of daily life with its multiple relationships. I am particularly referring to family, studies, work and free time. Dear young friends, cultivate your talents, not only to obtain a social position, but also to help others to “grow”. Develop your capacities, not only in order to become more “competitive” and “productive”, but to be “witnesses of charity”. In addition to your professional training, also make an effort to acquire religious knowledge that will help you to carry out your mission in a responsible way. In particular, I invite you to carefully study the social doctrine of the Church so that its principles may inspire and guide your action in the world. May the Holy Spirit make you creative in charity, persevering in your commitments, and brave in your initiatives, so that you will be able to offer your contribution to the building up of the “civilisation of love”. The horizon of love is truly boundless: it is the whole world!

- Pope Benedict XVI, WYD 2007 MESSAGE, Growing in love each day


3:12. Not as though I had already attained, or were already perfect: but I follow after, if I may by any means apprehend, wherein I am also apprehended by Christ Jesus.
3:13. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended. But one thing I do: Forgetting the things that are behind and stretching forth myself to those that are before,
3:14. I press towards the mark, to the prize of the supernal vocation of God in Christ Jesus.


-St. Paul to Philippians

Wednesday, May 9, 2007

"Love destroys the lover if he cannot obtain what he loves"

Does this quote ring a bell? If you lived it, you have probably wondered what is this thing we fill in our heart and does not want to let us alone and at peace unless we go with its will. For me, I am still thinking about it, and slowly I am making sens of the icon that led me to discover the article from which the quote is from.

Beside I had learned that God is Love. Of course how else can he be a jalous God? able to do anything except supporting an other god beside Him? You can check more of this divine madness in the side bar...

I discovered this quote when I was trying to find a better description of Rublev icon's Hospitality of Abraham. I tracked it down and find it on a blog in an article entitled: "Seeing with the Heart". A very interesting article, I think I will come back to it some day. For now, I don't have much time, but I would like to share two interesting paragraphs I noticed:

Antoine de Saint-Exupery reveals to us in the character of the fox a secret: "One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes." Anyone who has ever been in love, anyone who has ever went through trials and sufferings with hope, anyone who has compassion for the poor knows that he cannot be a materialist. Matter is not all that there is. There is something deeper, more important than what we see, what we touch. The eyes alone cannot see that which is truly important. It must be helped by the heart. The heart can penetrate through the accidents of being into its very core, its form. Only with the heart can one see that there is dignity in the unborn, hope in the suffering, and beauty in a world that seems to be so ugly. In love, the heart can perceive value. In love, motivated and caused by love, the heart can direct a person to give himself to another. This love is nothing else than the loving gaze of God who never puts His gaze away from us; our hearts beat because of the loving gaze of God. (p.1)...

... Christ was beaten, humiliated, and considered a blasphemer: the Word of God was accused of blasphemy. Even when God had become man, man would not give Him his heart. A kiss maybe, but not his heart. Even his friend betrayed him. Yet, Christ never stopped gazing: Beaten and denied, "the Lord turned and looked at Peter" (Lk. 22:61). "But the law of love is not concerned with what will be, what ought to be, what can be. Love does not reflect; it is unreasonable and knows no moderation. Love refuses to be consoled when its goal proves impossible, despises all hindrances to the attainment of its object. Love destroys the lover if he cannot obtain what he loves; love follows its own promptings, and does not think of right and wrong. Love inflames desire which impels it toward things that are forbidden" (Peter Chrysologus, Sermon 147). "Love inflames desire which impels it toward things that are forbidden"-- God to become man? God to die? What foolishness! What a stumbling block! How can man bow down to such a God? Love indeed is too risky. And it transcends reason. It cannot be abstracted, but received and given. God did not spare His Son because He loves us; His love can bear "all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things" (1 Cor. 13:7). God never fails. He allowed a soldier to "thrust his lance into his side, and immediately blood and water flowed out" (John 19:34). This is the model of a circumcised heart. (p.2).......

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