Love Decides Everything

I came across this quote from Pedro Arrupe, who led the Jesuits from 1961 to 1984. It's something to ponder - what we love becomes our driving force. It makes a lot of sense, and it provides a reflection of our priorities - as individuals and as a society - that may not be so pleasant to look at.

Nothing is more practical than finding God, that is, than falling in love in a quite absolute, final way. 

What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you will do with your evenings, how you will spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. 

Fall in love, stay in love and it will decide everything.

Pedro Arrupe, SJ

Comments

[crystal]

Beautiful :-)

[Hector]

Have you ever seen a teenager in love? The whole day revolves around the other person and that is all they think or day dream about...

I often think that thinking of God as my beloved makes sense, I don't always behave as such...

[Mark Mossa, SJ]

Way to start off the new year on an Ignatian foot!

Have a great one!

Mark

[Steve Bogner]

Crystal... yes it is: beautiful.

Hector - You got me thinking.... teenage love is really something to behold, I agree. But I'm reminded too of an old couple - must have been in their 80's - I saw back when I was Christmas shopping. They were walking the mall together, holding hands all the way. And when I came back another day, they were there again, holding hands while walking around the mall. Both images of love - the teenage version and the old-couple one - are appealing to me as models of our loving relationship with God.

Mark - Thanks, and my best wishes to you for a great new year!

[Maggie]

This prayer is on the door of my office, and not just so that everyone who enters knows that I have Jesuit leanings. I agree with every word of it.

[George Kloss]

Love is it. The examples of teenage and old-age love together peaked my interest. True love and where it goes and what it means is central to our humanity.

Everyone's upbringing has so much to do with how they perceive and value others and love itself. I think upbringing defines the ballpark of where each person's love can end up. What each person does thereafter and who they meet will place them somewhere in that ballpark. They can hit a home run, strike out, place a bunt or continually hit foul balls or anything in between.

People and love is a topic that we barely understand. It might be because many of us just want love to be magic. A good example of that is what Pedro Arrupe wrote as qouted above: "Fall in love, stay in love and it will decide everything." It might be because other people have no capacity for love and use it simply as an extra power lever. Our lack of understanding of Love might be because we are afraid to face the center of life because of its intensity. But regardless, love and people is central to religion and I think Catholicism specifically.

A metaphysical study of "love" would most likely be bookend-ed with those two examples: teenage and old-age. The stages of "love" being: attraction, desire, goodwill and finally if possible: recipricocity (true love). (this "love" range was stolen from a book by a Polish philosopher titled Love and Responsability).

What percentage of people are capable of moving beyond attraction and desire is definetly up for debate. (How big is your ballpark?)

Thanks Steve and everyone. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year as well.

[Jon Capen]

This post made me think of the film,'Catch me if you can' directed by Steven Spielberg. In the film the main character impersonates an airline pilot, a doctor, and a lawyer before the age of 20. How was he capable of pulling off such a stunt? I believe it was Love.

The real life character, played by Leornardo Dicaprio, was motivated by his love for his family. His hope was to keep the family together.

Even though Dicaprio's character breaks numerous laws during his transformations I still think it provides an example of what one is capable of accomplishing if motivated by love. Practically anything.

Because he was being motivated by love, fear was not an obstacle for him. And, I think this is what seperates personal successes and failures. The person who's motivated by love careens boldly forward as a result of their passion as opposed to the person who stalls out from obtaining their desire due to some fear(rejection, failure, responsibility, etc..).

I believe this principal can be applied to our faith development. Do we love to pray or is it a burden at times? In what ways does our faith become burdensome?

I suspect that most have had periods where they were on fire in their faith life and have had periods where they felt dry. The peaks and valleys of faith. And, I believe that when we are on high in our faith life is when we are most in love with our religious life and the valleys are periods when we allow certain fears to infiltrate and disrupt our faith.

Sorry, for the long post. It's been awhile since I've been on. Hope everyone had a blessed Christmas.

Jon

[Steve Bogner]

Yes Maggie, this would be a good prayer to frame and hang somewhere prominent. Great idea!

George - When I read Arrupe's quote, or prayer if you want to call it that, I didn't get the impression he was looking at love as something magical. In fact, he says it is a very practical thing. I think you're on to something about being afraid to face the center of life; to get to the comfort and certainty of real love we have to first become vulnerable and open to it. That can be a spooky thing for people to do - exposing those vulnerabilities. Perhaps it's our willingness to be open to love that defines how big our ball-park is?

Jon - Thanks for dropping in again! That was a good movie - I've seen it a couple times. I don't know, though; was it fear or love that motivated him? I always thought his motivation was more around fear than love. Discerning the difference can be tricky, I suppose.

[Fran]

So many kinds of loves the Greeks taught us: agape, or spiritual love;
storge, or familial love;
the love between friends, or philia;
and sexual love, the familiar eros.

They each have their own adrenaline pump, but to love God the way Arrupe describes it is what the mystics talk about. That kind of love definitely has an eros component.

[ukok]

As Hector mentioned, teenagers in love are besotted.

If only we could leap out of bed at the merest thought of Our Lord when we're pushing 40 or beyond and our bones are starting to creak...just as we would have done in our romanticist youthful years!

I remember (vaguely ;) what it felt like to be in love, and those whom I have loved have yet only been a poor shadow of the Glorious love that God has to offer me by comparison.

What could be better than bathing in God's love and the reciprocation thereof?

Beautiful!

God Bless

[Lisa]

This is a great post. Thanks, again, Steve, for your great blog.

[George Kloss]

Steve,

I meant "magical" because of Arrupe's use of the verb fall in "Fall in love, stay in love"

My point is that love does not have to be "an accident" or something that can only happen to you. Love can and is something that we can will through God's grace and not just something that "happens" to us.

So, "magically" falling in love is not the only way to God's heart. We can drive our love or work into love or grow in love or bring our love or offer our love or flow into love. More do and less happen is what I meant. I see Arrupe's point just want to open it up a little to those who might have to work a little to grow in love with Our Lord.

[Fran]

Steve, speaking of love, please read and comment at Sacred Ordinary on today's post about Pat Robertson and Sharon. I feel so mad and so sad--his action is the antitheist of Arrupe's belief.