Reading DEUS CARITAS EST (Part 3)

One day I'll have finished reading through this encyclical and I'll be back to posting about our newest lego creation or some great deal I got at the grocery store. Then I'm afraid whoever reads this blog may think I suffer from multiple personalities. That's how I operate though. My interests are varied so you never really know what you'll hear about when you come here.

Real life tidbit: My husband had CQ last night which means he was on duty 24 hours. He'll be home in an hour so we can go to to church. Then he'll sleep since he was awake all night. The night before last I pulled an all nighter myself when CJ didn't seem to want to go to sleep. I got probably 2 hours of sleep and then the other half of the terrible twosome woke me up. I went in to make my coffee only to realize I had used my last filter already. Of all the days....

Back to the encyclical..

It’s funny because I thought I was all finished with 6 but when I went back it felt like I was seeing the last paragraph for the first time. I think that’s why you should probably only spend about 15 minutes when you’re trying to really absorb something like this. After that your brain just seems to time out anyway.

He now says that when love matures to the level of love that Jesus modeled for us then it becomes something that seeks out its own death in many ways. It is like the wheat that falls to the ground and “dies”. Only after it dies will it then bear much fruit. Another example he gives is of Jesus whose journey of love takes him to his death at the cross. Only then can He be raised from the dead. This is the kind of love we should be seeking.
I wonder if in our thoughts on finding love in this world any of us put that down as a quality. “Let me find love so that I can be broken down” Essentially though that is what he is saying. He says that the love we seek should free us from ourselves so that we can be giving to others. It sounds so different from the personals we read in the paper.

SWF seeking someone who will bring me flowers, cook me dinner, rub my feet and put me first in everything.

Perhaps it should say this instead

SWF seeking someone who I can bring flowers to, cook dinner for, rub their feet and put them first in everything.

A perfect love would be a constant flow of giving and receiving. It could be, though, that we go through times where we feel like we are the only one giving. How then do we meet that need we have inside of us? We can’t just give, give, give until we are depleted and empty inside. In order to keep giving of ourselves to others (like our husband, our kids, that neighbor...) we must drink from the waters that flow from Jesus’ love. We aren’t expected to just exhaust ourselves loving everyone else while never receiving love. Love does need to be a 2 way street. Sometimes though you just aren't "feeling the love" as they say. For example right now my husband is working a gazillion hours a week. He barely has time to breathe. As you can imagine I end up having to be both mom and dad much of the time. That can be exhausting. So what do I do? Should I say "All I do is give, give, give and I get nothing in return." That is certainly what I think on a lot of days. This encyclical tells us that we should turn to Jesus. His is a perfect love. That is where we will be replenished. We should never feel like all we do is give. Even if the humans in our lives aren't always able to give back to us what we need, Jesus is able to do it for them.