Loving in the Light of Eternity: Love and Intimacy as the Heart of All Reality

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The words of this book seek to express, to make visible and tangible, the central reality that gives meaning to all of human existence: our call to experience the fullness of love and intimacy in the very likeness of the Trinity. They have been born from a prolonged contemplation of the mysteries of the faith, particularly of the mystery of God revealed to us through Christ in the Gospel, and, in the fullest way, in the Paschal Mystery of his Passion and Resurrection. And, in a particular way, this contemplation has come to discover that the “meeting place” by which the call of God meets us in the depths of our humanity is precisely in our bodies, in our concrete bodily existence as man and woman created in the image and likeness of God. It is here that the ineffable mystery of the divine intimacy becomes present and incarnate in all the contours of human existence, allowing each one of us, through sheer grace, to be espoused to God in intimate love, and also to live and manifest his own love and intimacy in our human relationships. This book is therefore a joyful immersion of heart and mind, bathed in contemplative wonder and reverent amazement, into the perennial complementarity of man and woman as an expression and an incarnation of the very inner life of the Trinity; and, through this and beyond this, it also seeks to express a glimpse, a taste, of the very inner life of God himself, our deepest desire and ultimate fulfillment. From this place, however, a rich multiplicity of reflections flows, seeking to draw the heart into the very convergence point of love and intimacy in which the whole of human existence, and indeed the whole of creation, is united as one within the eternal embrace of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The first part of this book reflects on the deepest questions of human existence in the light of the Gospel and in particular of the Theology of the Body. It addresses such realities as the beauty of true chastity, the mutual enrichment and circulation between the vocations of marriage and virginity, the unique beauty of chaste friendships, and the eternal consummation that awaits us at the end of time. The second part picks up on many of these themes, though seeking to penetrate still more deeply into the great Mystery at the heart of history—the union of the heavenly Bridegroom and his Bride, and indeed the eternal virginal intimacy of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. These reflections also try much more explicitly to offer a chaste reading of the meaning and beauty of the human body, in order to make contact with the depth of God’s intentions for human sexuality. This is a reading, not only in the light of time and nature within the confines of this world, but in the very light of eternity, in which the spousal meaning of the body will be perfectly fulfilled in the embrace of God. The third part of this book is a rich overflow, from the place of convergence in the love and intimacy of the Trinity, in which the very concrete living of sexuality in and outside of marriage is illumined from a place of great simplicity and clarity. It treats a number of practical ethical questions, particularly as relating to the living of the sexual embrace, not from a legalistic perspective, but rather from the living heart of the Mystery in which all things, spontaneously, receive their true illumination and unveil their authentic beauty. The fourth part is a collection of poems treating of all of the same themes, and seeking to allow a particular entrance into the radiance of the Trinity’s intimacy and the light that pours forth from here into our existence in this world.