true love always trumps desire - by fr. greg

Who is Jesus? What is my experience of him? Do I know this Person who died for love of me who is always with me?

He is "the image of the unseen God," whom both Old and New Testaments reveal as marvelously close to man. Reverently the Church attests to this truth in her Morning Prayer: All-powerful God, you made a wonderful covenant with your people Israel, and a more won- derful one with your Church, sealed with your Son's sacrifice of the cross.... Lead your faithful people into full, unending union with you in your kingdom.

If we have experienced God within ourselves, within his Church, his Word, his Sacraments, and have known his presence in others, we are on the way. We begin to understand his closeness, to celebrate his presence. To this celebration of us is called. We are each to God, each to run an immense risk, for coming to know another person involves the risk of loving, of being drawn into oneness with the other. For love does just that: it is a force drawing two persons into union.

-Paul M. Connor, O. P., The Word and the Covenant, Celibate Love

True love always trumps desire. Love is not covetous, jealous or hateful, it does not consume or destroy, it does not use others to satisfy desires of the ego. We are assaulted by the word "love" at all times in popular culture. So much so that the meaning of the word has become confused, sometimes meaningless, even dishonest. In the words of Cardinal Leo Suenens, "under this magnificent word are hidden what we must call the counterfeits of Love: in actual fact it covers only too often exaltation of the sexual instinct and its supreme freedom... It is up to Christians in particular not to let the word Love be profaned, to reestablish its meaning and not use it unless to express real love." This is not to say that love cannot be expressed through sexuality - quite the contrary. Love can be expressed in many varieties, and it is important to separate the two. Sexuality and the satisfaction of a sexual urge is not a necessary component of love.

Love is the meaning of life, on every level.