Many people talk of love today. They say it is this romance and adoration that when attached to another person is all about how you feel. But in the words of comedian John Pinette, "I say nay nay!"
Love cannot last if it is built on emotion, or self-identification, association or such fickle parts of the human nature as are applied to the passion and emotion. True love breeds more than just a fast beating heart and some obsessive feelings. True love breeds sacrifice, patience, courage and truth. It breeds pain. I recently listened to a podcast from Catholic Stuff You Should Know discussing the topic of dating. The two men discussing the topic mentioned how hard and painful marriage is, with all the crests and troughs and triumphs and losses that a couple are bound to laugh and weep about. They then explained that marriage practices the total self-giving to another that for humanity, is painful because we are imperfect and therefore imperfect in our love. But marriage is the ultimate practice that seeks the perfection of sacrificial and self-giving love. When both parties are working toward that love they imitate the relationship that is so completely reciprocal in the three persons of the Trinity that it is the beauty of life and love and the good itself.
So when people say love is all about how you feel about a person, I get angry. Because love is more than what you feel; and what you feel is often not right. It is not right to feel envy and desire your friend's wife for your own, or attempt to tear a healthy and happy relationship apart. True love does not desire that kind of destruction for another for the sake of one's own gain. It is not right to desire those who should not desire you back, or to tempt them to do so by exploiting their weaknesses, or lack of strength and reason. Love is not this lust, or this inclination to attraction.
Emotional love is not Love with a capital "L." It is simply the spark of intrigue or affinity that if positive, can induce the desire to know a person. But even then emotional love does not create love. Mutuality creates Love. Endurance, trust, honesty create Love. Integrity, Reason and Fidelity create Love. Love comes through growth and coming to better know a person's soul, and seeking the best for them whether or not it would be difficult for you. It means moving past a slump in attraction, small bickering, or maybe even curbing your lust for others. Because Love cannot grow when it is not nurtured, and Love cannot grow when it is not right. Love is natural and follows the obvious laws and design of nature in men and women, and is aided by mutual attraction and giving. It is not merely a feeling. Feelings are nothing compared to Love provided for by two complementary halves of a whole that can only be bound by God and His design.
Stop degrading what love is by comparing it to what you feel in the fleeting moment.
