402 WHAT IS LOVE?

YOUCAT Lesson 402

YOUCAT the catechism for Catholic youth

402  What is love?

Love is the free self-giving of the heart.  [2346]

Mary and Jesus (Don C Bragg photo). ….. 402

To have a heart full of love means to be so pleased with something that one emerges from oneself and devotes oneself to it.  A musician can devote himself to a masterpiece.  A kindergarten teacher can be there wholeheartedly for her charges.  In every friendship there is love.  The most beautiful form of love on earth, however, is the love between man and woman, in which two people give themselves to each other forever.  All human love is an image of divine love, in which all love is at home.  Love is the inmost being of the Triune God.  In God there is continual exchange and perpetual self-giving.  Through the overflowing of divine love, we participate in the eternal love of God.  The more a person loves, the more he resembles God.  Love should influence the whole life of a person, but it is realized with particular depth and symbolism when man and woman love one another in marriage and become “one flesh”  (Genesis 2:24)  308

“All the reasons in favor of the ‘subjection’ of woman to man in marriage must be understood in the sense of a ‘mutual subjection’ of both ‘out of reverence for Christ’.”  Saint Pope John Paul II (1920-2005), Apolstolic Letter: “ Mullieris Dignitatem “ (1988)

“Love is of God and he who loves is born of God and knows God.”  1 John 4:7

“One cannot live a trial life or die a trial death.  One cannot love on a trial basis or accept a person on trial and for a limited time.”  Saint Pope John Paul II (1920-2005), November 15, 1980

[2346]

The integrality of the gift of self

2346 Charity is the form of all the virtues. Under its influence, chastity appears as a school of the gift of the person. Self-mastery is ordered to the gift of self. Chastity leads him who practices it to become a witness to his neighbor of God's fidelity and loving kindness.