July 27, 2021

Me: Ok Lord, what do you want me to write about?

The Lord: Me

He loves it when I write to Him, write about Him, and just when I write. Lately, I’ve been filling my life with other tasks, and He keeps redirecting me... Write, Elizabeth. Write of me, of life, of love...

Me: As you wish.

Is Love a Choice?

“I never really believed in magical love,” my friend said, “until I fell into it.”

Have you ever fallen in love? In conversation recently, my friends and I came to the realization that to fall in love is not a choice. In fact, if it were a choice, it would cease to be love.

I intend to defend this position, since as a Catholic, we are often told: “love is a choice.” I do actually believe that. So if falling in love is not a choice, but love is, what does that mean?

Now, I want to make a distinction before I go any further. There is a difference - impossible to describe though I will try - between falling in love and infatuation.

If you have been in love, then you know what I mean without my trying to describe it to you. And if, so far, you’ve only experienced infatuation, then no description can truly communicate the concept of love.

Some Clarifications:

Neither love nor infatuation is a good or a bad thing, in and of itself. Both partake of goodness, and both are a necessary and beautiful aspect of the human experience. Both can also be perverted. But love is higher - in the order of being and goodness - than infatuation.

• Infatuation engages the senses and emotions, driving out every other reality.

• Love engages the entire person: mind, body, and soul, and leaves command of the emotions.

• Infatuation makes the person selfish, even if she doesn’t mean to be, for she is so full of the other person and the good feelings she’s experiencing, that she has a hard time seeing other people.

• Love brings the person out of herself and able to see people, beauty, and good things in abundance, for she sees suddenly the futility of little things, and begins to engage with reality on a deeper level.

• An infatuated person sees their beloved in everything. Anything, even the littlest thing, reminds them of their beloved.

• A person in love looks for aspects of their beloved in things of quality. They seek to go deeper into beauty, goodness, and truth. Knowing that their beloved is a thing of precious quality, they seek for themes of precious quality in all around them.

• Infatuation either leads to love, or dies away into oblivion.

• Love endures, even if it changes. It either changes it’s tone into a lasting affection, fades away into a pleasant memory, or else it lasts until ‘death do us part.’

• Infatuation does not change the person, other than to bring sometimes transitory happiness and stress.

• Love, on the other hand (while not automatically making him a better person), calls the lover to a higher virtuous standard. He suddenly recognizes and adores virtue, and has the powerful motivation to be a better person for the sake of his beloved. Love transforms.

The Choice

So why is it that although love is a choice, falling in love is not?

To be ‘in love’ is not a choice, but choice is still involved. When I and my friends have fallen in love, we noticed the common theme of Resistance. Every one of us resisted the idea of accepting that we were ‘in love.’ To fall in love is unnerving for the very fact that we do not choose to fall into it. Would you choose to fall into a pit? No. To fall is an unsettling feeling. It makes your stomach drop, your heart pound, your life change direction (literally - we go from traveling horizontally to vertically). For this reason, the expression ‘falling in love’ is very appropriate, for it is an unwilling fall.

To be in love is the choice. It is to accept Joseph Campbell’s Call to Adventure, and to embrace that life is about to take an unexpected and potentially disastrous turn. To be in love is to accept that there is a higher reality in life than oneself. It is to recognize beauty and goodness, and to seek after deeper understandings of these realities. To be in love is to ascend in mind and soul.

In God’s inneffible wisdom, He has allowed us to experience this call through the presence and companionship of another person in romantic love. He could have left us with Him alone, for He is, after all, Love itself. But in the Garden, he decreed that it was not good for man to be alone, and so he created a helper fit for him, and in Adam’s moment of awakening to see Eve, he was struck into declaring his love and his joy. It was Adam and Eve’s call to grow deeper into God through knowing and discovering the other.

“Do not arouse, nor awaken love, until it so desires.” This awakening is outside of our control. It seems as though the love itself is a living entity, coming to life and fluttering outside the doors of our hearts, begging for us to let him in.

Will we choose to let him in?

My friend, when he spoke of falling in love, of now believing in magical love, was speaking of this total self-effacing love. It makes one want to live forever with the person, if they can, or else die to prove their love. It is the celebrated love of Romeo and Juliet, of Victoria and Albert, of Christ and the Church. It happens in a moment - in one instant of existence - and it changes the trajectory of one’s entire life. One instant, we are our regular self, trying to figure out who we are and what we’re meant for in this life, and the next: everything else is eclipsed. Nothing small can enter our world any longer. Not, that is, unless we choose to deny our call and shut the door on beauty, truth, and goodness. For this arousal, this awakening of love, is in truth a call to the highest realities of life: to enter into the Love of God himself, who is alpha and omega, the beginning and the end.

This love may lead to marriage, or it may be a stepping stone on the journey. But I encourage you that when you fall into love and you open your door to let it in, you have done no harm. You have chosen beauty, truth, and goodness, and if you invite the Lord in, you will ascend to know Him in his Higher Places. You will ascend to see the Lord in his house of Glory, where He waits for you.

Do not despair of ‘magical’ love. Do not seek to arouse it. And most of all, when it comes, do not deny it entrance.

June 30, 2020

The bird kept chirping outside my window, as if in response to my hiccuping sobs. I wanted to pick up paper to write about it, this contrast between something beautiful and lively, and someone so lonely, but the thought of taking action was painful. I knew that to hold the pen would hurt my wearied, trembling fingers; to find a place to write would be inconvenient, and the whole process of looking for a pad of paper was too overwhelming to consider. Instead I was kept bowed, broken, in my chair.

After a while, my sobs cease, but the chirping of the bird increased. He had never been chirping for me in the first place. Nature was indifferent to me, as removed from me as if it could not care that I existed. But although I was removed from it, I cared very much. I wanted to be appreciative – engaging in it – but I was stuck inside, cold, lying in bed… I’m too tired to eat the food I just finished heating up.

But I knew that the longer I waited to eat, the worse I would feel.

There is a series of chapters in the Brothers Karamazov that begin with ‘lacerations at’. They talk about all the places where Alyosha receives pain to his heart - lacerations - that cut him open and tear at his sensitive soul. I would title this episode of my life: ‘lacerations at my brother’s.’

There is a desolation in the realization that a place that you considered a sanctuary is in fact a desert. That a place you thought you could escape to was really a desolate place. I want my weak body to be OK with the fact that there is no table at which to eat, no hot water to bathe in, no couch to sit on, no regular bed to lounge on. I want my body to accept that cast-iron pans are not from the devil, and that large 2 gallon jars of milk are not a cruel invention created by sadistic people.

But you see, it hurts me to hold my whole bowl of soup in my hands and I need a table to put it on. It hurts me to sit in wicker chairs and I need a couch to curl up on. My whole body is in pain all the time, and the only thing that takes it away is a bath of hot water. But the only way I can get it is to boil gallons of water on the stove and carry them across the expanse of the apartment - all the while making myself weaker and shakier, and more and more increasing my pain. The 2 gallon jar of milk is so heavy that I spill as much as I pour into my glass. And the cast iron pans are so heavy and bulky that they are impossible for me to lift and clean.

I wanted to come keep my brother company, but I did not account for all these things that bring me pain. I did not account for the fact that I would be miserable. And the bottom line is, that he does not much care about having me here. He cares more for the friend who just returned from college, with whom he spent his birthday evening, and went to lunch without me. If he really wanted me here, now or at another time, he would do his upmost to make the environment comfortable – ready for me, and for my mother. But that is not his concern. He is living his life, three hours from my home. He left, and perhaps he does not want to be with us unless he chooses to come back, which he does from time to time. Although it is impossible for me to spend quality time with him at those times, for we are surrounded by many people and conversation is not possible amongst the small children. I am alone anyway, and I need to stop being desperate to retain those people who I thought would be there for me - no matter what.

March 13, 2020

Coronavirus update from The Catholic Corner Store

We’ve all seen them. The emails pouring into our inboxes from local and even global organizations assuring us that their top priority is everyone’s safety. It’s a great priority to have. But as Catholics, our top priority is not safety, but HEAVEN.

It’s serving God every moment that we are here, not being afraid of death, and supporting each other in moments of crisis. Pope JPII said, “Be not afraid!”

At the Catholic Corner, we are being careful. But we are also being prayerful. If you want comfort in this time, please stop by to talk with us. We are here to be a light in the darkness. We are here to remember that the world has been through many crises, and will be through many more, and that God always helps us through them. Let us embrace his healing power! And pray for peace, health, and above all, in this troubled, fearful time, increased trust in the Lord!