Tuesday 10 May 2011

Love and responsibility 10




Love and Responsibility.
Love has a particular responsibility: Is my love complete and mature enough to justify the love of another person? Will my marriage enlarge my existence or will I lose my own personality, my ‘self’?
Marriage will call me to be responsible for my spouse, and to have feelings of responsibility towards him or her. Ultimately, this "being responsible" for my spouse rests upon my choice of the person on whom to bestow my gift of self. In marriage I will be called to rediscover myself daily in another person, and for this reason I cannot choose a spouse by sexual values alone. Sexual values do not determine the authenticity of choice. The value of the person must be the decisive one.
The truth about choice is tested when emotional reactions grow weaker and sexual values lose their effect, and only the value of the person remains. It is only when love is put to the test that its true value can be seen. My love for this particular person is real love because I have given myself this person with my whole life, and because the other person has made the same gift of themselves to me.
End.

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