ARE YOU LOVING IN AN UNLOVING WAY?

 Are You Loving In An Unloving Way?

Have you ever felt like someone has barged into your heart or manipulated you into a level of emotional or physical intimacy you weren’t comfortable with? We often justify these behaviors in the name of love. But, as St. John Paul II observed, what we often call love, if we look at it more closely, is its exact opposite: manipulation and use of other persons for our own ends.

In his document The Joy of Love (Amoris Laetitia), Pope Francis writes that “the deeper love is, the more it calls for respect for the other’s freedom and the ability to wait until the other opens the door to his or her heart” (99). These words remind me of a very important teaching from Saint John Paul II’s Theology of the Body drawn from this evocative line in the Song of Songs: “A garden locked is my sister, my bride, a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed” (4:12). While John Paul II explores both of these metaphors – “garden enclosed” and “fountain sealed” – primarily in connection with the truth about marital love and sexual union, we can extend the important lessons learned in that regard to the more general point Pope Francis is making.


“Persons, precisely as persons, must never be mastered. It’s an intrinsic violation of their dignity”.Christopher West

Both of these metaphors – “garden enclosed” and “fountain sealed” – convey the deeply personal meaning of sexual union, according to John Paul II. In particular, they speak with profound reverence of the mystery of femininity and the love with which a husband must approach his wife’s “garden” – both the garden of her heart and the garden of her womb. Initially, her garden is “enclosed” and her fountain “sealed” as a clear sign of the woman’s self-possession. She is “master of her own mystery,” as John Paul II expressed it. And that means the woman holds the key to her own “garden,” which remains closed until she – and she alone – wills to open it.

Recognizing this, the bridegroom in the Song of Songs knows he cannot “take” her or “grasp” her. He, of course, longs with all his being to enter her mystery, her heart, her garden: “Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my perfect one; for my head is wet with dew” (5:2). But he knows, as Pope Francis reminds us, that love calls for respect for the other’s freedom and the ability to wait until the other opens the door. If the man were to barge into this “enclosed garden” (in thought or deed), or if he were to manipulate her into surrendering the key, he would not be loving her, he would be violating her, using her, asserting himself as master over her. And persons, precisely as persons, must never be mastered. It’s an intrinsic violation of their dignity.

This is not so for dogs, horses, or elephants. Of course, we hope Fido’s master isn’t cruel, but simply to place oneself as master over an animal is not a violation of that animal, whereas it is for a person. Why? Because as persons we are our own agents, the masters of our own decisions. No one can substitute his will for mine without encroaching on and violating my turf. Someone might very much want me to want what he wants, but no one can want for me, and no one can force me to want what he wants. This is where the impassible limit between persons, dictated by the dignity of free will, becomes clear.

By Christopher west