Marilyn Monroe sang 'I want to be loved by you ... (Boop-boop-a-doop) ... and if you recall her performance in the movie 'Some Like It Hot' I'm sure you'll agree - she meant it.
To be loved ... isn't that everyone's dream? I want to be loved by you, just you, and nobody else but you? I'm sure that's the dream of every bride and groom and I'm sure it's the dream of N.... and N... today.
Some would say that to be loved is our greatest desire and our greatest human joy. That may well be true. However, others, and I'm one of them, would say that our greatest desire is to love.
To be loved is pure gift, often undeserved, while to love is the expression of our greatest human potential and therefore constitutes our greatest accomplishment. For this reason, to the extent that most of us seek accomplishment rather than gift, I would say we prefer to love rather than to be loved.
Learning to love without conditions and self-interest is a painful journey requiring an extraordinary depth of soul; a depth reached by the constant excavation of the ego - self-emptying for the sake of the beloved.
And still there is an even greater love, an heroic love. This is the love poured out upon the unlovable - those who do not deserve our love. This is the love with which Christ has loved us. He sacrificed himself for us in a most painful and humiliating way while, as Romans 5:8 says: we were still sinners. This is the great love I wish for you in your marriage.
J.. and T.., how do you intend to love one another? To what degree of greatness?
To be loved is pure gift, often undeserved, while to love is the expression of our greatest human potential and therefore constitutes our greatest accomplishment. For this reason, to the extent that most of us seek accomplishment rather than gift, I would say we prefer to love rather than to be loved.
Learning to love without conditions and self-interest is a painful journey requiring an extraordinary depth of soul; a depth reached by the constant excavation of the ego - self-emptying for the sake of the beloved.
And still there is an even greater love, an heroic love. This is the love poured out upon the unlovable - those who do not deserve our love. This is the love with which Christ has loved us. He sacrificed himself for us in a most painful and humiliating way while, as Romans 5:8 says: we were still sinners. This is the great love I wish for you in your marriage.
J.. and T.., how do you intend to love one another? To what degree of greatness?
- Some couples love till someone better comes along.
- Some until they get hurt by the other.
- Some, because they just lose interest.
