POST-SYNODAL APOSTOLIC EXHORTATION AMORIS LÆTITIA OF THE HOLY FATHER FRANCIS

POST-SYNODAL  APOSTOLIC EXHORTATION

AMORIS LÆTITIA

OF THE  HOLY FATHER

FRANCIS

CHAPTER FOUR

Love  in  marriaGe

Dialogue

136.                                    Dialogue is essential for experiencing, ex- pressing and fostering love in marriage and fam- ily life. Yet it can only be the fruit of a long and demanding apprenticeship. Men and women, young people and adults, communicate different- ly. They speak different languages and they act in different ways. Our way of asking and respond- ing to questions, the tone we use, our timing and any number of other factors condition how well we communicate. We need to develop certain at- titudes that express love and encourage authentic dialogue.

137.                              Take time, quality time. This means being ready to listen patiently and attentively to every- thing the other person wants to say. It requires the self-discipline of not speaking until the time is right. Instead of offering an opinion or advice, we need to be sure that we have heard everything the other person has to say. This means cultivat- ing an interior silence that makes it possible    to

137 chiLean bishops’ conference, La vida y la  familia: regalos de Dios para cada uno de nosotros (21 July 2014).

listen to the other person without mental or emo- tional distractions. Do not be rushed, put aside all of your own needs and worries, and make space. Often the other spouse does not need a solution to his or her problems, but simply to  be heard, to feel that someone has acknowledge their pain, their disappointment, their fear, their anger, their hopes and their dreams. How often we hear complaints like: “He does not listen to me.” “Even when you seem to, you are really doing something else.” “I talk to her and I feel like she can’t wait for me to finish.” “When I speak to her, she tries to change the subject, or she gives me curt responses to end the conver- sation”.

138.                                Develop the habit of giving real impor- tance to the other person. This means appreci- ating them and recognizing their right to exist, to think as they do and to be happy. Never down- play what they say or think, even if you need to express your own point of view. Everyone has something to contribute, because they have their life experiences, they look at things from a differ- ent standpoint and they have their own concerns, abilities and insights. We ought to be able to ac- knowledge the other person’s truth, the value of his or her deepest concerns, and what it is that they are trying to communicate, however aggres- sively. We have to put ourselves in their shoes and try to peer into their hearts, to perceive their

deepest concerns and to take them as a point of departure for further dialogue.

139.                             Keep an open mind. Don’t get bogged down in your own limited ideas and opinions, but be prepared to change or expand them. The combination of two different ways of thinking can lead to a synthesis that enriches both. The unity that we seek is not uniformity, but a “uni- ty in diversity”, or “reconciled diversity”. Fra- ternal communion is enriched by respect and appreciation for differences within an overall perspective that advances the common good. We need to free ourselves from feeling that we all have to be alike. A certain astuteness is also needed to prevent the appearance of  “static” that can interfere with the process of dialogue. For example, if hard feelings start to emerge, they should be dealt with sensitively, lest they interrupt the dynamic of dialogue.  The ability  to say what one is thinking without offending the other person is important. Words should be carefully chosen so as not to offend, especially when discussing difficult issues. Making a point should never involve venting anger and inflict- ing hurt. A patronizing tone only  serves  to hurt, ridicule, accuse and offend others. Many disagreements between couples are not about important things. Mostly they are about trivial matters. What alters the mood, however, is the way things are said or the attitude with which they are said.

140.                            Show affection and concern for the other person. Love surmounts even the worst barriers. When we love someone, or when we feel loved by them, we can better understand what they are trying to communicate. Fearing the other person as a kind of “rival” is a sign of weakness and needs to be overcome. It is very important to base one’s position on solid choices, beliefs or values, and not on the need to win an argument or to be proved right.

141.                              Finally, let us acknowledge that for a worth- while dialogue we have to have something to say. This can only be the fruit of an interior richness nourished by reading, personal reflection, prayer and openness to the world around us. Otherwise, conversations become boring and trivial. When neither of the spouses works at this, and has lit- tle real contact with other people, family life be- comes stifling and dialogue impoverished.

passionaTe Love

142.                                 The Second Vatican Council teaches that this conjugal love “embraces the good of the whole person; it can enrich the sentiments of the spirit and their physical expression with a unique dignity and ennoble them as the special features and manifestation of the friendship proper to marriage”.138       For  this  reason,  a  love  lacking

138 Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World Gaudium et Spes, 49.

either pleasure or passion is insufficient to sym- bolize the union of the human heart with God: “All the mystics have affirmed that supernatural love and heavenly love find the symbols which they seek in marital love, rather than in friend- ship, filial devotion or devotion to a cause. And the reason is to be found precisely in its totali- ty”.139 Why then should we not pause to speak  of  feelings and sexuality in marriage?

The world of  emotions

143.                           Desires, feelings, emotions, what the an- cients called “the passions”, all have an impor- tant place in married life. They are awakened whenever “another” becomes present and part of a person’s life. It is characteristic of all living beings to reach out to other things, and this ten- dency always has basic affective signs: pleasure or pain, joy or sadness, tenderness or fear. They ground the most elementary psychological activ- ity. Human beings live on this earth, and all that they do and seek is fraught with passion.

144.                                  As true man, Jesus showed his emotions. He was hurt by the rejection of Jerusalem (cf. Mt 23:27) and this moved him to tears (cf. Lk 19:41). He was also deeply moved by the sufferings of others (cf. Mk 6:34). He felt deeply their grief (cf. Jn 11:33), and he wept at the death of a friend

139  A. serTiLLanGes, L’Amour chrétien, Paris, 1920, 174.

(cf. Jn 11:35). These examples of his sensitivity showed how much his human heart was open to others.

145.                     Experiencing an emotion is not, in itself, morally good or evil.140 The stirring of desire or repugnance is neither sinful nor blameworthy. What is morally good or evil is what we do on the basis of, or under the influence of, a given passion. But when passions are aroused or sought, and as a result we perform evil acts, the evil lies in the de- cision to fuel them and in the evil acts that result. Along the same lines, my being attracted to some- one is not automatically good. If my attraction to that person makes me try to dominate him or her, then my feeling only serves my selfishness. To believe that we are good simply because “we feel good” is a tremendous illusion. There are those who feel themselves capable of great love only because they have a great need for affection, yet they prove incapable of the effort needed to bring happiness to others. They remain caught up in their own needs and desires. In such cases, emo- tions distract from the highest values and con- ceal a self-centredness that makes it impossible to develop a healthy and happy family life.

146.                        This being said, if passion accompanies a free act, it can manifest the depth of that act. Marital  love  strives  to ensure that one’s   entire

140 Cf. Thomas aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 24, art. 1.

emotional life benefits the family as a whole and stands at the service of its common life. A family is mature when the emotional life of its members be- comes a form of sensitivity that neither stifles nor obscures great decisions and values, but rather fol- lows each one’s freedom,141 springs from it, enrich- es, perfects and harmonizes it in the service of all.

God loves the joy of  his children

147.                           This calls for  a  pedagogical  process that  involves  renunciation.  This  conviction  on the part of the Church has often been rejected as opposed to human happiness. Benedict XVI summed up this charge with great clarity: “Doesn’t the Church, with all her com- mandments and prohibitions, turn to bitter- ness the most precious thing in life?  Doesn’t  she blow the whistle just when the joy which is the Creator’s gift offers us a happiness which    is itself a certain foretaste  of  the  Divine?”142 He responded that, although there have been exaggerations and deviant forms  of  asceticism in Christianity, the Church’s official teaching, in fidelity to the Scriptures, did not reject “eros as such, but rather declared war on a warped and destructive form of  it, because this  counterfeit

141    Cf. ibid., q. 59, art. 5.

142 Encyclical Letter Deus Caritas Est (25 December 2005), 3: AAS 98 (2006), 219-220.

divinization of eros… actually strips it of divine dignity and dehumanizes it”.143

148.                     Training in the areas of emotion and instinct is necessary, and at times this requires setting limits. Excess, lack of control or ob- session with a single form of pleasure can end up weakening and tainting that very pleasure144 and damaging family life. A person can cer- tainly channel his passions in a beautiful and healthy way, increasingly pointing them towards altruism and an integrated self-fulfilment that can only enrich interpersonal relationships  in the heart of the family. This does not mean renouncing moments of intense enjoyment,145 but rather integrating them with other moments of generous commitment, patient hope, inevi- table weariness and struggle to achieve an ideal. Family life is all this, and it deserves to be lived to the fullest.

149.                           Some currents of spirituality teach that desire has to be eliminated as a path to libera- tion from pain. Yet we believe that God loves the enjoyment felt by human beings: he created us and “richly furnishes us with everything to enjoy” (1 Tim 6:17). Let us be glad when with

143    Ibid., 4: AAS 98 (2006), 220.

144  Cf. Thomas aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 32, art.7.

145 Cf. id., Summa Theologiae II-II, q. 153, art. 2, ad 2: “Abundantia delectationis quae est in actu venereo secundum rationem ordinato, non contrariatur medio virtutis”.

great love he tells us: “My son, treat yourself well… Do not deprive yourself of a happy day” (Sir 14:11-14). Married couples likewise re- spond to God’s will when they take up the bib- lical injunction: “Be joyful in the day of pros- perity” (Ec 7:14). What is important is to have the freedom to realize that pleasure can find dif- ferent expressions at different times of life, in accordance with the needs of mutual love. In this sense, we can appreciate the teachings of some Eastern masters who urge us to expand our consciousness, lest we be imprisoned  by one limited experience that can blinker us. This expansion of consciousness is not the denial or destruction of desire so much as its broadening and perfection.