“A feeling, regardless of how noble, is still a feeling. No feeling can be relied on to last in its intensity, or even to last at all. Knowledge can last, principles can last, habits can last; but feelings come and go.”—C.S. Lewis
Nothing in this world can be as difficult as love. Love requires care and maintenance or it will die. Often all that requires is showing attention and interest. Ceasing to be in love (which is far better than common sensuality or cold self-centeredness) does not mean ceasing to love. Love is not merely a feeling. Thrills come at the beginning and do not last, the fading of the initial thrill is compensated for by a quieter and more lasting kind of interest, a world of new thrills. Those are of the type that are of a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by the grace of transcendent beliefs and principles. It is this type of love that the engine of marriage runs on, being in love is what started it.
Real love requires free choice. It involves mutual gratitude and generosity. But love, by definition, seeks to enjoy its object. Love activates what you know. Sometimes love demands severity, sometimes tenderness, other times indifference. And real love wants to make the other person better and is willing to make the effort, but not if it’s for objectional wrong. The definition of love calls for virtue. Love needs truth. Truth puts one on the path to know the good from the bad, right from wrong. All virtues are regulated, guided and ordered by truth. Truth is an act of the intellect, which is what bridals love's formidable power. Unless that happens the relationship is going to fall into awful things and confusions--physically, emotionally, and intellectually. Clearly what is first and foremost is truth.
Love involves alternating rolls of leading and following which do not lead to domination or subordination or mere equality. Rather it leads to cooperation, which requires different sensibilities from each partner, and in the end express a wholeness that encompasses both partners qualities--a greater wholeness than what each can possibly achieve alone and that cannot be realized without one or the other.
“Genuine love … is demanding. But its beauty lies precisely in the demands it makes. Only those able to make demands on themselves in the name of love can then demand love from others.” – St. John Paul II
