By Abby Leary, Columnist
Dearest Reader,
Our human hearts will never be satisfied until we are reunited with God. No human. No thing. Nothing on this earth could fill that void. And that is beautiful. Because it reflects God’s infinite love for us. Who or what else could satisfy the hungry soul besides the Being that created it? It just makes me feel loved. It makes me want to love.
I work at a nursing home for the elderly. Recently, one of the residents passed away unexpectedly and I had the opportunity to read her eulogy. As I skimmed through the pages, I kept thinking, “Oh! I wish she knew how much I loved her and how she was so special.” We humans carry a lot of thoughts and emotions that remain within us. Perhaps there are times when they should have escaped. When something or someone slips away, you wish he or she could have understood the density of their impact.
Surely, emotional chastity exists for a reason. I am not suggesting that you should pour out the depths of your soul to every person that you encounter. That would defeat intimacy. What I am saying is that I feel that our culture is emotionally confused. Obviously no one, including myself, is perfect, and nobody is meant to be. However, a line in the song “Chasing Cars” sung by Snow Patrol has really impacted me. The line is, “those three words are said too much, but not enough.” The three words the singer refers to is the “I love you” phrase. And how true the line in this song is.
Through prayer, God has revealed certain things to me. A verse from the Bible has stuck with me for a while: “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away” (1 Corinthians 13:7-8). The fact that love never ends is so crucial. Society is so harped on those, “I love you” words. People are always saying things like, “Oh, I’ll never forget my first love!”, when looking back on an old relationship. Those statements confuse me. If the relationship ended because the care was no longer there, was there ever true love to begin with? True love is endless. Of course, there are varying depths of love, however, something about it ‘ending’ rubs me the wrong way.
I remember talking to my sister about love. She said the day she married her husband, she didn’t think she could love him any more than she already did. To her surprise, she realized that she was so wrong. After having children and spending more years as a couple, she talked about how she recognized that their love would never stop growing. Clearly, it would never end. After hearing this, I began to understand that the lowest level of love in a romantic relationship is when the person knows for certain that it will never end. Despite this, the three-worded phrase is said so casually and so often. This is where I think the song was right when it stated, “those three words are said too much.” True love is forever. Some relationships are not.
After coming to this realization, I thought about the other part of the song and how it mentions “and not enough”. It is so clear that people do not express their “I love you” phrases enough. I feel that our society has been depleted of genuine love. I was able to recognize this at my sister’s wedding mass last month. The priest spoke about the Sacred Heart of Jesus and how humans could never possess true love without the infinite love within Christ’s Heart. It is so important that each couple relies on the Sacred Heart of Jesus as their source of care and love, due to the fact that His Heart is actually Love, Itself. Where else could love come from? The simple statement that “God is Love” prevails. God is Love. God is Truth. True Love is Christ.
People whose romantic relationships, as well as friendships, do not revolve around Christ are often hurting and suffering because they do not know the endless love that exists for them. Those three words are not said enough because Christ, Who is Love, is not included enough. This is tragic. I think of the nursing home resident’s death and how I wish I could have better expressed my care for her. Why don’t people express how they truly care? There are, of course, many answers to that question. Life is so beautiful in how these hardships become minuscule to all that the Sacred Heart of Jesus has to offer us. So please, know that you are loved endlessly. We hear these things but refuse to let it sink in. Accept the love that God has created you for. Whatever He wants for you is so beautiful. Right now, you are so loved because true love, HIS love, is ceaseless. And please know, above all else, God is with us.