LOVE IS THE PRODUCT OF LEARNING

Love is so meaningful, yet so very difficult to define!

Is there an acceptable definition of love? Many poems have been written, many songs have been sung, many words have been uttered, many hearts have been broken, and truly tragedies abound all because of love. Unfortunately, no such definition exists because it is extremely general concept encompassing many kinds of interpersonal relationships.

The love that a parent feels for a child is not the love felt by brothers and sisters for each other or for their parents; nor is it he same as that experienced by husband and wife. In quite another way, we love ourselves. In still another sense, we "fall in love" with someone with whom we had no previous relationship, perhaps "at first sight." We speak of "spiritual love" and "sexual love." We "love" certain kinds of food. The term is used so often and in so many contexts that it has almost ceased to have meaning.

A psychologist has the following definition of love: "Love is the active concern for the life and growth of that which we love," and "when the satisfaction or the security of another person becomes as significant to one as is one's own satisfaction or security then the state of love exists."

Whatever the definition, many will agree that the ability to love, to care for others, and to engage in mature sexual behavior is a product of learning.

LOVE IS A MIRACLE

Love is the word we use to magnify the miraculous feeling within us. The word itself is the manifestation of God Himself. What in man corresponds most to God's being is his capacity to love. And we resemble God most by the manner we love.

Love, unfortunately, has become one of the most misunderstood and confused words in any language. Some want it to mean nothing more than the attraction between the sexes. Others want it to mean no more than desire and its satisfaction. And when others speak of it, it seems that love and sex are synonymous. It's all so sad because love understood as any of these is hardly love. It is confused: the wrapper is taken for the content.

Love is really like life, and life is a miracle. It is so vast in its meaning, so varied in its expressions and so rich in its manifestations that one has to be fully alive in order to understand it fully.

The measure of love, then, is not what our hearts dictate or what our desires lead us to. Love is very much greater than the urges we feel within. It is above all, the goodness that is within us that we must share with the goodness of other persons in communion that is stronger than death.

In this sense, love includes the goodness of a man seeking the goodness of a parent toward his or her child, the goodness of a friend seeking the goodness of another. Yes, love never dies because goodness never dies.