I am a Catholic, and I am called to love my brothers and sisters. What does it mean to truly love someone?
For many years I had personally been confronted by this question. I had flitted, skimmed, weaselled, avoided, and even out-rightly rejected this imperative. Along the way I came up with my own interpretations on how ought I love, and how ought I enact it. Most of them were complete nonsense, borrowed notions from pop-culture and human philosophy. And it was until recently I may finally understand how is it possible to love one another as how Christ has loved us. Today, I would like to share with you, friends, my ardours journey of realizing what we had always taken for granted all our lives- Even now I don’t believe I have a concise and definite answer that is all-encompassing. My personal take of it would probably be multi-layered, subjective and idealistic.
Several years ago, freshly out of confirmation, I emphasized trust as the ultimate proponent of love. I guess it sounded reasonable at that point in time, since I was constantly exposed to a social environment of mistrust, paranoia and fear. While politics and backstabbing reigned amongst the friends I held dear to me, what I truly desired then was a relationship where we may all be spiritually and emotionally stable- where we will always be there in support for each other, emotionally, spiritually and practically.
When it became obvious that cliques and circle-of-trusts could not unite people as one, I then believed that cherishing (the present), sharing (with the other), and the personal conviction would be the three primaries to a loving relationship. By Cherishment I meant appreciating each person, and every act of goodness as a blessing to life- to hold it close to the heart, live in the constant knowledge that one is loved. Sharing would be the openness of one to others- to not impose one’s expectations and needs, nor accept unconditionally the expectations of the other; but rather the prompt to a mutual compromise and consent that in good and bad, one does not have to travel alone. I was also aware that love was not a feeling but a choice, and hence personal conviction was necessary.
As in entered the army, the essence of love was once again redefined: with special emphasis on innocence and simplicity in a relationship. While the materialistic aspect of regiments and sensory socialization (very pertinent in army) is put in contrast to the loving relationship, what I really envisioned was that to love would simply to be there for the person, not for the sake of personal ford and fun, nor for statuses and trophies. To love requires openness in intent and action to others, different they may be, willingly, in all desire for the other to remain in joy. Personally, my view of love then was disembodied from the reality of natural relationships, stripping all practical connotations and dwells solely into its underlying meaning. However in all things said and done, I believed that the intent is also equally important- and it should naturally be as pure and unadulterated as possible.
I guess it was about the same time I believed that my understanding of love was perfect. In pride I turned cynical by ORD- and I have to admit that it had been one of the wrong turns I had made in life. Instead of upholding the abovementioned partial values to love my friends, I chose to detest my friends for being unable to be as genuine as I was. Towards the end I gave up trying to love. In exasperation, I headed out to philosophy and theology to answer the question of how to live a life of happiness instead.
My quest for happiness lurched ahead in research and introspection, yet paradoxically after two years of questioning it brought me one full cycle back to the question of love. I found out that it was impossible to be happy without being in love, although it was possible to love although one is suffering (because love was a choice and not a state of mind). I saw love as the ultimate truth to things. Love convicts one person to the goodness of the other, just as how life convicts one to his personal being. I also saw my earlier ideals of trust, sharing, and simplicity no longer the primary determinants of love. Rather, they were merely aspects which resonate within a loving relationship. By my final post I concluded that to love somebody meant that ‘I want to be in union (communion) with that person’, that ‘(s)he mean a lot to me’, and ‘to me, that person is an embodiment of (God’s) goodness’.
I have to pause here for a moment. What was said before, lofty it may sound, was no more than my personal interpretation then on what it means to truly love someone. It was secular, and everything felt disjointed and compartmental. I don’t allude that they were always wrong, but it was meaningless to arbitrarily state that “love is this and love is that”. I am not a guru, nor am I doctor love. I finally understood why after I joined CSS.
In my currently limited understanding of the Catholic Love Ideal, true love is to be open and vulnerable to the other- to be vulnerable to intimate communion, and to be vulnerable to rejection. It was precisely upon these two reasons had Jesus willingly died for us on the cross, and it was in the mystery of His death and resurrection He has shown us what does it truly mean to love people, imperfect they may be. As agents of God’s love we should imitate Christ by our actions of charity to our neighbour. In other words, to love someone would too mean to be vulnerable to the other person. And ultimately our expectations of love should be no more than to delight in the presence of the other.
Personally, it was in His love I perfected my personal search for happiness and love in research and introspection. In koinonia (community) there is a union of individuals and commitment to God’s goodness and love and in Diakonia there was service. And precisely it is only in unity and service I may trust, share, cherish, will in all simplicity and be open to my brothers and sisters in Christ. Yet this time I know now that these values do not arise from my own whims (as I had came up since confirmation), but ultimately through the love of God Himself we may have the capacity to enact love. Yes, many times I had attempted loving with my own strength and will, and everytime I did so I burnt out eventually. If it had not been trust it had been cherishment, and if it was not the specifics then it would be overall inability to be completely open and vulnerable to the other. It was as though in everything I was unable to seek a ‘listening-ear’ or ‘best-buddy’ or ‘soul-mate’ so as to speak and time after time I had too been frustrated with myself for unable to ‘fit into’ their needs. If only I had just turned to the Eucharist as my source and strength to love!
No I do not claim I have the answers to this imperative. I am still very much a work in progress, and judging from the number of wrong turns I had made I still have quite a bit of catching up to some of you guys who may have realized this way before me. But nevertheless I would definitely stress, as and when we contemplate how we ought to treat our brothers and sisters, that we may constantly know that we should love one another as how He had loved us, with all our heart, our mind, our strength- openly, freely, and willingly. And with this put into place, all else would fall accordingly, in His time and will.
God Bless.
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