As I am writing my Ponderings I am sitting at the Corso (Promenade) of Santa Maria Castellabate, (SA). A woman who is related to my brother-in-law saw me typing on my computer and said, “Don Giacomo, che cosa stai facendo?” (“Don Giacomo, what are you doing?”) I said, “Sto lavorando. Ogni domenica scrivo un messaggio ai miei parrocchiani nel mio bollettino parrocchiale." (“I am working. Every Sunday I write a “Ponderings” in my parish bulletin.”) She said, "Ma è la vostra vacanza, perché si sta lavorando, si dovrebbe riposo?" (“But It is your vacation, why are you working, you should be relaxing?”) And I said smiling, "Un sacerdote è sempre al lavoro, l'unico riposo avrò quando sarò morto." (“A priest is always working, the only rest I will have is when I’m dead.”) lol.
I was in Rome for the first part of my trip visiting my friend Msgr. Montecalvo, and while there I went to visit the beautiful Piazzas and Fountains of Rome. While I was at the Piazza di Trevi, I over heard a tour guide say to young couples pointing to a little spout of water coming out of a separate part of the fountain: “See down there, that water coming out of that spout? It is believed that couples who drink from this
spout will be in love forever.” One of the guys in the group said sarcastically, “That’s all I have to do?” The young man’s sarcasm had profound meaning for me because he is right, there are no quick and easy answers for couples in love to stay in love.
Falling in love is a very beautiful thing. God gave men and women these feelings for the purpose of contentment in relationships. But today many have forgotten the true meaning of love and relationships have become complicated, problematic and short lived.
True love cannot be understood without the knowledge and belief in God. Love is not achieved through personal self interests, but only through understanding what is meant by true love. God came down from heaven to teach us the understanding of true love. The whole purpose of God’s divine plan for Man’s Salvation is based on a profound Love which is manifested in the sacrifice of putting oneself in the service of others. Jesus said “I have not come to be the one who is served, but to serve.” (Mk 10:45) Love must never objectify a person nor be understood through the guise of selfish preservation, but must always be understood as orientated toward the Holy Scriptures and God’s Divine and Natural Law.
By loving through the understanding of the way the world views love, we can confuse “love” with “infatuation.” The way we know the difference between the two is that love does not want to possess, but seeks to be understood through mutual
respect and commitment. True Love then is based on permanent and lasting relationships based on free will. The opposite is true of infatuation, which reduces
love to being egomaniac and temporary.
It is a very narrow path when viewing love through the perspective of it being defined by God, rather than the world. This is why Christ said that the road to life is wide, but the gate to heaven is small and narrow is the path. (Mt. 7:14). A narrow path to God should not mean that our love should be stingy or miserly, but should encompass all, even our enemies and to those who have persecuted us. Christ told us, “If you love those who love you, what good is that? Even the pagans do as much.” (Lk 6:32).
This confusion of the difference between true love and infatuation is one of the reasons why so many young people are choosing to cohabitate, why there are so many abortions, why there are so many babies being born out of wedlock, why so many divorces and why as a culture we have accepted homosexual relationships. The Sexual Revolution and the Women’s Liberation movements of the 1960s, began to fundamentally change the way we as a culture define love. When the definition of love began to change and embraced a less Christian view, so did society change and go from one that understood the fundamental beliefs of love, to one that began to define love in more emblematic and superficial terms.
If our meaning of love is not expressed how God defines love and how love is expressed in the Bible and Divine Revelation, it is convincing when a homosexual says why shouldn’t I have the right to love another person if I want to, or when a person getting divorced says, I fell in love with someone else. The Christian definition of Love is not based only on emotion or feelings, but based on God’s love for us. He tells us in Holy Scripture, “Love one another, as I have loved you.” (Jn 13:34-35) Once we understand we are to love as God has loves us, we understand the true meaning of love. Unfortunately today, because we have lost the
meaning of true love based on Biblical teachings and have traded them in for quick fixes and self gratification, the world has become symbolic of the tour guide at the Trevi Fountain telling our young people quick and easy remedies to very delicate and complex matters.