THE VOCATION TO LOVE

Pope John Pau II directs a question to each one of you personally:

"Are you capable of giving yourself. your time, your energies. your talents for the good
of others?

ARE YOU CAPABLE of LOVE?

The VOCATION TO LOVE, understood as true openness to our fellow human beings
and solidarity with them, Is the most basic of all vocations. It is the origin of all vocations
In life."

- My Vocation to Personhood - a vocation to LOVE

What is a person? God himself tells us the answer: Let us make man in our own image. in
the likeness of ourselves. (Gen. 1:26)

What is God? "God is love" (1 Jn: 4.8)

Our deepest vocation therefore is to be a person - a freedom for love. We have God's own
nature, God's own need and power to love, all life consists in using or failing to use this
great power within us. When I love I live: when I refuse to love I am dying.

"We have passed out of death and into life.

And of this we can be sure
because we love our brothers
If you refuse to love, you must remain dead.

All other vocations have point and meaning only after and within the vocation to love. I
can be the best In any career I choose but unless I am first of all a person - a freedom for
love - then toy life is pitifully pointless before God...
It is only when I recognize. acknowledge and manifest. God's image and God’s power to
love within myself that I have really accepted his gift to me. hew Testament Way to
Community)

We reflect God most, we collie closest to the image of God when we love. We become
more faithful reflections of the God of love.
John Paul Speaks of Love: What Love Is and Isn't

- The heart, the symbol of friendship and love is the Opening of the whole being to the
existence of others, the capacity. . . of understanding them. -To love therefore, is
essentially to give oneself to others. Far from being an instinctive inclination. love is the
conscious decision of the will to go towards others, (To the Youth of France)

- Created in the image and likeness of God, man cannot fully find himself except through
the sincere gift oneself. To love means to give and to receive something which can never
be bought nor sold but only given freely and mutually. (Letter to Families)

- Love is true when it creates the good of persons and of communities; it creates that
good and gives it to others. (Letter to Families)

- "Love believe all things, hopes all things, endures all things." (1 Cor. 13:7) This is the
very love that endures all things. At work within it is also the power and strength of
Christ, the Redeemer of man and Savior of the world. (Letter to Families)

Sharing other viewpoints on LOVE

- Genuine love is volitional (that is a decision of the will) rather than emotional. The
person who truly loves does so because of a decision to love. . . This person has made a
Commitment to be loving whether or not the loving feeling is present. If it is, so much the
better but if it isn't, the commitment to love, the will to love still stands and is exercised.
(M. Scott Peck)

- Love is a verb, an action, an activity, a form of service. "Love is a value that is

actualized through loving actions.
Love is something you do:
the sacrifice you make
the giving of self like a mother bringing a newborn into the world
the forgiveness given

If you want to study love, study those who sacrifice for others, ever., for people who
offend or do not love in return." (Stephen Covey)

- Love consists not in the extent of our feelings of contentment (gusto) but in the
fairness of our determination [to please God to do his will)]

WRONG NOTIONS OF LOVING

- Exclusive:
"You only love me truly if you love others less"

- Possessive:
"If you really love me, I want you to pay special attention to me."
- Manipulative
"When you love me, you will do extra things for me."

This kind of loving lead,to:

- Vanity:
"You must see something very special in me."

- Jealousy:
"Why are you now suddenly so interested in someone else and not in me?"

- Anger:
"I am going to let you know that you have let me down and rejected me."

* But love is "always patient and kind; it is never jealous; love is never boastful or
conceited; it is never rude or selfish; it does not take offense and is not resentful." (1 Cor
13:4-5)

In the words of JP II:

the conditions of a complete and definitive assumption of responsibility for the partner,
and the commitment should be undertaken publicly in marriage.

TRUE LOVE WAITS:

Personal calls to love

The vocation to love is lived out

- in matrimony
- in the ,consecrated life
- in the ordained ministry
- in the mission “ad gentes”

Challenge/Commitment

Personal - Education to loving

Growing in self-mastery
Removing all that blocks my capacity for loving

With other
Young people – A concrete project where we can live out on being with and for others,
where our SERVICE becomes LOVE MADE VISIBLE