June 2007 - Man Must Love

Could a man deprived of love be only an unspeakable monster?

In a felicitous phrase, Antoine de Saint-Exupery invites us to consider that love is above all "to look together in the same direction," and not "to look at one another." This simple, commonsense reflection forcefully underlines the fact that love is, before anything else, a union of wills and not an exhausting and sterile search for ourselves in the face of the other.

Few know it; and infinitely fewer live it!

Dear Friends and Benefactors,

Could a man deprived of love be only an unspeakable monster?

In a felicitous phrase, Antoine de Saint-Exupery invites us to consider that love is above all "to look together in the same direction," and not "to look at one another." This simple, commonsense reflection forcefully underlines the fact that love is, before anything else, a union of wills and not an exhausting and sterile search for ourselves in the face of the other.

Few know it; and infinitely fewer live it!

The world seems nothing else than an immense brothel where sensuality - shamelessly called "love" - spreads out, in full daylight, its unhealthiest excesses. Solomon is not alone in being able to take pride in not having refused anything to his senses - but at least he did not dare to give to his lowest passions the noble name of love!

This insatiable search for all that satisfies the senses sterilizes the normal exercise of intellect and will, dragging man down into an infernal spiral of selfishness and radically preventing him from loving. Indeed, love is devotion, dedication, the giving of oneself to others, the "getting out" of ourselves. The egoist, interested only in himself, cannot do it! His declarations of love are so many lies: incapable of forgetting himself, he cannot give himself to others and his fiery avowals are the price he has to pay in order to receive his ration of slight and fugitive satisfactions in exchange.

We are daily witnesses of, and are saddened by, the distressing display of unrestrained sensuality, that killer of the true love that binds human wills together by means of renouncements.

Exhausted by this vain chasing after pleasures, man finds no rest. Happiness flees him as pleasures multiply. And then the pleasures are multiplied to compensate for the lack of happiness! It is a vicious circle in which man turns endlessly upon himself, stupefied, thirsty, desiccated. Such a being, slave of his senses, incapable of aspiring to anything else but himself, is only the faint likeness of a man!

No question about it: such a man is a monster.

We usually feel a certain reticence in speaking about this subject of love, as it has been debased so much! But, in the end, such reticence is wrong. Let us not fear to restore it to its nobility, recalling that we, children of the Incarnated Love, must be love's witnesses.

Let us, first, make clear that only man is capable of loving, because only he possesses a spiritual soul. We love, not because our senses are seduced by pleasures, but because we engage our will in seeking the good that our intelligence points out. Knowing that any knowledge passes through the senses, we do not deny that the latter participate in the process of love; but we simply reject the stagnating and sterilizing notion that love is reduced only to a sensual excitation.

We also reject the vain claims of those who affirm that animals are capable of loving. This error, altogether rather common, has its source in the usual confusion between a servile attachment and a consecration of love. The attachment of a dog to its master, often admirable, is not, however, an act of love. Let us be clear: as remarkable as this fidelity can be, it comes simply (or more prosaically) from the dog's instinct of self-preservation. The animal cannot love, because it cannot choose and will.

Man can love thanks to his spiritual faculties, which enable him to choose among multiple attractions. Having chosen freely, he engages himself, or, in other words, he gives himself. Love is primarily a gift and, thus, a sacrifice. At its highest point, it consists in the gift of oneself and thus, in the sacrifice of oneself. Sacrifice is an essential part of the process of love; it is its first and ultimate fruit. In the end, love is nothing else but a total dedication of oneself.

Sacrifice is the foundation of love. Has sacrifice suddenly disappeared? Then love, in turn, disappears and offers us the sad spectacle of our hedonistic and decadent society. If it is not rooted in sacrifice, love dies out in spite of all efforts...

This renouncement, extremely painful for our nature and so outmoded nowadays, far from mutilating us, is a source of balance and joy. To love is a natural need for man. Man lives only insofar as he loves and he does not love unless he gives himself without calculation. We are not God. Then, it is naturally necessary for us to seek our end apart from ourselves. Obliging us to get out of ourselves, love brings our nature back into order, and allows the normal and ordered exercise of all our faculties. To effectively want the good of another, even at the cost of our own interest, is the key to happiness, the breath of our soul and our fulfillment.

It is obvious that love, in the above purely natural exposition, is limited. A love truly worthy of its name is only a springboard to make possible the soul's reception of the divine love. However, it is quite important to talk about it, because what is supernatural rests on what is natural. But if, by misfortune, we do not go beyond what is natural, we would be rejecting the order established by God Himself. This rejection would be proof of an immeasurable pride that obstinately refuses to love while refusing to give itself; believing only in itself it does not believe in love!

May God preserve us from such errors and teach us how to love, especially to love Him!

In Christo sacerdote et Maria,

Fr. Yves le Roux

A REMINDER FROM THE SEMINARY

• Please take note that this year's ceremony of priestly ordination will take place on Friday, June 22. at 9:00 a.m.