Love is for Life: Pastoral Letter of the Irish Bishops
PART I God's Plan For Love
(4.) GOD MADE US FOR LOVE
19. The human person is made in God's image. We resemble God in our capacity
to love. We humans differ from the animal creation in our capacity for love
and our need to be loved. We exist because God is loving us into existence
from moment to moment. We are made by God to be loved and to love. The human
being needs love in order to be human. Our need for love is endless; and
it can be satisfied only in God. It has been said that woman promises man
and man promises woman what only God can give. The human heart can know
no rest until it rests in God.
20. The human body is the expression of the human spirit: it too is made
for the communication of love. Our bodies express loving reverence and adoration
before God. Our hands express prayer, offering, worship, sorrow, entreaty,
hunger and need before God. Our speech expresses praise, thanksgiving, love
for God. The human body also expresses love for others and asks for the
love of others. Our speech communicates love to others. Our hands are shaped
for giving, for sharing, for helping and supporting, for healing, forgiving,
for offering tenderness and affection; in other words, for showing love
to others. It is true that our bodies, our speech, our hands, can also impart
hurt and harm and hate; but deep down we know we are not made for that.
Instinctively we recognise that such behaviour is inhumane, inhuman.We are
not being truly human when we hate and hurt: instead we are "acting
the brute".
Net publishing courtesy of the Newman Center at Caltech
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