Meditations on married love

Nothing but for love.

We are in the mid-800s when an English poet wrote: “If you have to love me, do it for nothing but love.” This is Elizabeth Barrett Browning and this is the sonnet XIV found in Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850).

The poet asked her beloved husband Robert not to base his love on what is fleeting: her smile, her way of speaking, her gaze… but to love her only for love.

If we read this request with a Catholic gaze there would really be much to think about.

Can a love based only on feelings and physical attraction last forever? No. Feelings come and go, physical beauty fades. No relationship can be eternal if it is not based on Love par excellence: Christ Jesus. He taught us to love in total fullness of our being so as to give ourselves totally, without asking for anything.

This is fundamental in married life. Looking at the other with eyes of faith, as one to love and cherish, a complementary part of oneself. Patience, understanding, joy and everything becomes the fruit of love.

The couple’s relationship becomes a journey where together one improves and learns how to love. That is how love matures, by making those who love mature and taking ever stronger roots in the Word of God.

Loving is not simple. I mean loving for real. We are human beings and we are often taken by selfish feelings and we seek perfection only in the other. But if we dwelt a second longer on what we seek, we would realize that, what we often pretend of others is missing in us. We tend to ask those around us to be perfect, when we should strive for perfection together.

This is why it is essential to always stay in contact with God: the sacraments, the Word and prayer, keep us anchored to him and thus never to lose that perspective of faith that leads you to see the image of God himself in the other. Love grows only through love and finds fulfillment in it. It makes us a One while remaining in our diversity, it maintains a lively and ever new marriage, projecting our life together into “a love eternity”.

Valeria Nisticò