la vita y bella

this past sunday's gospel, the wedding of cana, i am sure sparked marriage homilies nationwide, perhaps even globally. likewise, our fraternity priest, fr. terra, delivered an expose on the nature of marriage and the Church's view of the sacrament. it was possibly the best talk on marriage i have ever heard, and expressed some truths about the nature of love that i have come to realize through events of the last couple years of my own life. [brief sidenote: i said recently that desolation has exquisite beauty. the 'party of the second part' said something along the lines of, 'oh, come on! you'd better be able to defend that. you can't say that sort of crap without an explanation.' being unable to adequately find words at the moment, i will attempt to do so now. only in desolation can we find humility, which is absolutely essential to holiness. only in desolation can we realize the enormous extent of our limitations, and our fundamental dependence on that nebulous thing we call "grace." only in desolation, when the results of our decisions and independence and arrogance and sin have destroyed all hope of shaping our own happiness, can we realize the necessity of bowing to the Crucifixion and relinquishing our autonomy. i do not know if that helps at all, but that is what i mean by that.]
back to the point: the nature of love. i hold that all our actions are motivated by the desire for love, which is the ultimate happiness. it is either self love, or the desire to find love for ourselves, or love for others, which itself can be healthy or unhealthy. but the self-sacrificing love of marriage, the Church promises, can bring the greatest measure of earthly happiness if we do not choose to love for our own happiness. the purpose of loving another is not to make "me" happy, and as long as we view relationships in that light, we will never be happy. loving someone who is seeking love for his own happiness is a horrible, destructive, damaging experience. happiness comes as a result of choosing to give one's self for the other. our own personal happiness results from seeking the other's good, from sacrificing to make the other happy. this is love. whenever we seek self, or try to retain any sort of autonomy in love, we will not be happy with love. and if we are not happy with love, i do not know how it is possible to be happy at all.
i have known the sort of love that is admiration without motivation. i have known the all-consuming, lightening-intense, reality-changing passion. both lacked the essential quality of true, real love, which is the desire for sacrifice. they are incomplete and therefore do not truly deserve the name of love. love is a choice, always a choice, and a choosing of other, not a choosing of self. very few people these days, perhaps throughout history, understand this. the ones that do will know and give the greatest happiness.

more later ...