Deep Conversion/Deep Prayer

Author:Dubay, Fr. Thomas [Dubay, Fr. Thomas]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Spiritual & Religion
ISBN: 9781586171179
Publisher: Ignatius Press
Published: 2014-09-22T06:00:00+00:00

7

CONVERSION AND GENUINE LOVE

In our contemporary massive inundation of talk and chatter in the print and electronic media as well as in daily life, strong, beautiful words have, through overuse and sometimes abuse, often lost much of their accuracy and power. A prime example are two glories of the human race: freedom and choice. We alone in our vast cosmos write poetry and novels, history and philosophy, science and theology, because we alone have intellects and therefore freedom. We alone can be virtuous or guilty; plants and mere animals cannot. We invent and play chess, tennis, or football and build jumbo jets and computers—all because of these same powers of mind and soul. Palm trees and roses, squirrels and horses are not so fortunate. They are determined by nature and instinct.

Yet these two splendid words, freedom and choice, have now come to be used as euphemisms for the wanton destruction of innocent babies in their mothers’ wombs. It is difficult to believe that advocates of abortion do not see that any sin is pro-choice, or it would not be a sin. The rapist is pro-choice, and so are the thief and adulterer and the liar. From a glorious word choice is now degraded to the level of a shameful cover-up. Examples of this abuse of language could be multiplied, of course, but we must turn to our main point.

Love is so splendid a word that the evangelist John used it to define the Lord of the universe himself: “God is love”, unlimited, purest love (1 Jn 4:8). However, because dictionaries and thesauruses describe actual usage, it is not surprising that differing concepts of love abound in daily life. Among them we may note the following: a tender feeling of affection, a felt closeness due to kinship, feeling goodwill toward others, fondness and warmth, an attraction toward a gifted person, affection toward another along with a sexual attraction, passion and/or sexual intercourse, egocentric lust. A moment’s reflection makes clear that with the exception of the last named, lust, all these usages either are or can be noble, depending on the circumstances and the motivation of the person concerned. For example, sexual relations in a committed marriage and according to the divine plan of welcoming children and forming them are indeed good.

Yet to see the full beauty of love we must turn to the gospel, for perfect love appeared on earth in all its splendor in the Incarnation of God’s Son and in his life, words, Passion, death and Resurrection. Nowhere else do we find so incomparable a concept and reality. The gospel definition of love goes something like this: a self-sacrificing, willed concern for and giving to another, even if attraction and feeling are diminished or absent, and even if little or nothing is received in return—and all with divine motivation. To see fully the sublimity of this concept a few observations are necessary.

First of all, we notice that gospel love does not happen without conversion from egotism to a genuine love for truth, goodness and beauty.

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