Walking Together "in the Ambit of a Greater Love"

On the Feast of the Holy Family, I was led by the entry in Magnificat to meditate on some observations from chapter 13 of Father Julian Carron's book Disarming Beauty.

The current leader of the "Communion and Liberation" movement expresses some points about human love (such as it is experienced even in the unique relationship of marriage) that correspond to what I continue to see in my own life, and shed light upon it. Carron states: "In the loving encounter between man and woman, at the very moment in which the boundless dimensions of our desire are revealed to us, the possibility of fulfillment appears. Or, more precisely, as we perceive in the person we love the promise of fulfillment, the whole infinite potential of our desire for happiness is enkindled. This is why nothing makes us understand the mystery of our humanity better than the man-woman relationship."

At the same time he notes that in the reality of such love between human beings "two infinite needs to be loved meet two fragile and limited capacities to love. Only in the ambit of a greater love do they not consume themselves in pretension and not resign themselves, but walk together, each towards a fullness of which the other is sign. Only in the ambit of a greater love can people avoid being consumed with the claim, laden with violence, that the other, who is limited, must answer to the infinite desire he awakens, making impossible both the fulfillment of the person whose desire has been awakened and that of the person he loves."

Through the ecstasy of our love, we awaken and deepen in each other a transcendence that is beyond ourselves, toward which we must journey together.

The Infinite One, who alone corresponds to the origin and destiny of our personal being, is the One toward whom the interpersonal experience of love points, the One who fulfills its promise.

And in Jesus Christ, the Infinite One dwells among us and proposes himself as the truth and fulfillment of the limitless desire sparked by human love. Jesus is the source, sustenance, and destiny of the relationship between man and woman, and all human interpersonal relationships. He is the One through whom and for whom we have been created. He is at the core of our existence, our affectivity, and our freedom. He is the One who establishes us in relation to one another, and draws us to himself.

As Father Carron states, "Jesus reveals the importance of the promise his person constitutes for those who let him in. It is not an interference on Jesus’ part in the most intimate level of human feelings, but rather the greatest promise ever made to man: the fulfillment of all his human desire, which is Jesus’ very person. 

"Therefore, if you do not love Christ, Beauty made flesh, more than the person you love, the latter relationship withers, because Christ is the truth of this relationship, the fullness to which both partners point, and in whom their relationship is fulfilled. Only by letting him in is it possible for the most beautiful relationship that can happen in life not to be corrupted and die in time. This is the audacity of his claim."