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May 2, 2018Spousal friendship by Robert McNamara
This is the third of a series of articles outlining Pope St. John Paul II's thought on human embodiment and sexuality. Read the first installment here and the second here.
Love lives not only within the lovers--as two numerically and psychologically distinct loves--but also between lovers. Wojtyła says, 'love is always some reciprocal relation of persons ... based on a relation to the good.' (Love and Responsibility, 57) Love is always an act of the human individual, yes; but love also seeks its proper maturation in the unity of two individuals, having its being as the bond that unites two distinct individuals, transforming two 'Is'into the unity of a 'we.' And so, for human love to reach its full and adequate maturity, the unilateral love of individuals must also become the reciprocal love of two individuals loving together. Mature reciprocal love is the love of friendship--amor amicitiae. In friendship the basic dynamisms of all personal love--fondness, desire, and benevolence--are taken into and absorbed in a reciprocal commitment of both to each another. In so doing, the lives of the lovers are interwoven in a stable state of love that encompasses many areas of life, and through the course of a extended period of time. ...
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