Lent has begun – a time of prayer, fasting, penance, and alms-giving. It is a “demanding” time in many ways, a time that calls us to greater holiness. Today’s Sunday Pope Quote is also about something demanding – love. “Love is demanding,” says Bl. John Paul II. But the demands of love are not something we have to fulfill by our own power. Demanding love – true love – has within it the “power and strength of God himself.”
Bl. John Paul II: The love which the Apostle Paul celebrates in the First Letter to the Corinthians—the love which is “patient” and “kind”, and “endures all things” (1 Cor 13:4, 7)—is certainly a demanding love. But this is precisely the source of its beauty: by the very fact that it is demanding, it builds up the true good of man and allows it to radiate to others. The good, says Saint Thomas, is by its nature “diffusive”. 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” (cf. 1 Cor 13:5-6). True love, Saint Paul teaches, is different: “Love believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Cor 13:7). 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 Saviour of the world.
Letter to Families, no. 14 (emphasis added)
About this series:
Every Sunday, the Marriage: Unique for a Reason blog will feature a short quote from either our current Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, or our late Holy Father, Bl. John Paul II (or occasionally another pope). These two men have given the world an immense treasury of wisdom about marriage, love, and the meaning of the human person, all of which are topics integral to the Church’s witness today. Their words are well worth reflecting on, as we have much to learn from these wise successors of St. Peter.
Thank you so much for the enlightenment!