The adventure of being engagedThe pontificate of St. John Paul II, in his reflections on the family, gave great importance to Christian courtship, understood as a preparation for the sacrament of marriage and family life: "You must prepare yourselves for the marvelous commitment of marriage and the foundation of the family, the most important union of the Christian community. As young people You Christians must carefully prepare yourselves to become good spouses and good parents of your family" (St. John Paul II, Meeting with the new generations, Uganda, February 6, 1993).
The Polish Pope insisted on accompanying young people because, among other reasons, youth is a stage in which answers to the great questions of life are sought. This is what he once said in response to the meaning of youth: "What is youth? It is not only a period of life corresponding to a certain number of years, but it is, at the same time, a time given by Providence to each man, a time given to him as a task, during which he seeks, like the young man in the Gospel, the answer to the fundamental questions; not only the meaning of life, but also a concrete plan to begin to build his life. This is the essential characteristic of youth" (St. John Paul II, "Crossing the Threshold of Hope").
He also explained that, in the face of a society that is battered and disintegrated by tensions and problems due to the clash of individualism and selfishness, it is crucial that parents offer their children an "education in love", "an education of love", "an education of love", "an education of love", "an education of love", "an education of love" and "an education of love". sex education clear and delicate" (Cf. St. John Paul II, "Familiaris consortio", n. 37).
This concern for the education of young people was already apparent at the beginning of his pastoral work, when he was a young priest: "The vocation to love is naturally the element most intimately linked to young people. As a priest, I realized this very early on. I felt an inner call in this direction. Young people must be prepared for marriage, they must be taught love" (St. John Paul II, "Crossing the Threshold of Hope").
Teaching and building love
In 1973, in a meeting with university chaplains, Karol Wojtyla said: "Love is, above all, a reality. It is a specific reality, profound, internal to the person. And at the same time, it is an interpersonal reality, from one person to another, communitarian. And in each of these dimensions - internal, interpersonal, communitarian - it has its evangelical particularity. It has received a light" (K. Wojtyla, "Young People and Love. Preparation for Marriage").
Likewise, the term "love" takes on a more mature form at the beginning of his pontificate. In his first encyclical, "Redemptor hominis" (Redemptor hominis) n. 10, John Paul II explained that "Man cannot live without love. He remains for himself an incomprehensible being, his life is deprived of meaning if love is not revealed to him, if he does not encounter love, if he does not experience it and make it his own, if he does not participate in it vividly". Where do these words have their roots? A possible answer to this question can be found in "Familiaris consortio". n. 11, published a few years after "Redemptor hominis": "God created man in his own image and likeness: calling him into existence out of love, he called him at the same time to love. God is love and lives in himself a mystery of personal communion of love. Creating her in his image and preserving her continually in being, God inscribes in the humanity of man and woman the vocation and consequently the capacity and the responsibility of love and communion. Love is therefore the fundamental and innate vocation of every human being".
The vocation to love
So, the two texts indicated, "Redemptor hominis". and "Familiaris consortio" show us the "vocation to love" as something fundamental and innate, since they reveal that love is rooted in the mystery of God. Thus, at the origin of every vocation is found the first Love, which is God, and which is based on a love of communion between the divine Persons. Thus man and woman, created as a "unity of the two," are called to live a communion of love and thus to reflect in the world the communion of love that is given in God, "by which the three Persons love one another in the intimate mystery of the one divine life" (cf. St. John Paul II, "Mulieris dignitatem," August 15, 1988, n. 7).
This last statement is also reflected in his work "The Goldsmith's Workshop". In it, Karol Wojtyla expressed this truth with an image: the rings of the spouses are forged by the goldsmith, who represents God. In other words, the wedding rings symbolize not only the decision to remain together, but also that this love will be stable because it is based on Love first, a Love that precedes them and will carry them beyond their expectations. In other words, supported by that first Love, man and woman will be able to remain united and faithful (Cf. C. A. Anderson - J. Granados, "Called to Love: Theology of the Body in John Paul II").
The Pontiff also pointed out that, according to Christian Revelation, the two specific ways of realizing "integrally" the vocation of the person to love are marriage and virginity. Both, in their characteristic form, manifest the deepest truth of man, that of his "being in the image of God". For this reason, he often exhorted to take seriously the experience of love, based on loving like Jesus: "The deepest reason for Christian love is in the words and example of Christ: 'Love one another as I have loved you' (Jn 15:12). This applies to all categories of human love; it applies to the category of committed love, love in preparation for marriage and the family" (St. John Paul II, Meeting with the youth of Lombardy, June 20, 1992).
Love that "goes on being".
St. John Paul II stressed that if human love is loved, there is also a lively need to devote all one's strength to the search for a "beautiful love", because love is beautiful, and young people always seek the beauty of love, they want their love to be beautiful (cf. St. John Paul II, "Crossing the Threshold of Hope"; beautiful love is for John Paul II, long before the beginning of his pontificate, chaste love (cf. K. Wojtyla, "Love and Responsibility"). Moreover, he explains that, since this love cannot be achieved by human strength alone, it is necessary to discover that only God can bestow such a love. God gives us this beautiful love by giving us his Son, so following Christ is the way to find this beautiful love (cf. St. John Paul II, Meeting with the youth of Lombardy, June 20, 1992).
But it is not only a matter of seeking this beautiful love, but also of building it up, because the gift of love demands the task of loving: "Love is never something ready and simply 'offered' to man or woman, but must be worked out. To a certain extent, love never 'is', but 'becomes', at each moment, what each person in fact brings to it and according to the depth of his or her commitment" (K. Wojtyla, "Love and Responsibility").
Bride and groom and chastity
For the construction of love, John Paul II emphasized chastity as fundamental; it is a "virtue that develops the authentic maturity of the person and makes him or her capable of respecting and promoting the 'spousal meaning' of the body" (Cfr. "Familiaris consortio". n. 37). In other words, chastity develops personal maturity, which is reflected in the virtue of responsibility, recognizing the other and responding, in an adequate way, to the good that is in itself.
Chastity has repercussions on the whole of man: as a soul that expresses itself in the body informed by an immortal spirit, he is called to love in this unified totality; thus, love also embraces the human body and the body becomes a sharer in spiritual love (cf. St. John Paul II, "Familiaris consortio" n. 11). For this reason, the Pontiff insisted on the vocation to chastity as an essential aspect of preparation for marriage. He further explained that chastity - which means respecting the dignity of others, since our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit - leads to growth in love for others and for God, as well as helping to prepare for the "mutual dedication" that is the basis of Christian marriage (cf. St. John Paul II, Meeting with the New Generations, Uganda, February 6, 1993).
From his extensive previous studies, he knew well why chastity leads to growth in love: "It has the mission of freeing love from the attitude of selfish joy (...) Often it is thought that the virtue of chastity has a purely negative character, that it is nothing more than a series of refusals. On the contrary, it is a question of a 'yes' from which 'noes' immediately follow. (...) The essence of chastity consists in not allowing oneself to be 'distanced' from the value of the person (...) Chastity in no way leads to contempt for the body, but it does imply a certain humility. The human body must be humble before the greatness of the person, and the human body must be humble before the greatness of love" (K. Wojtyla, "Love and Responsibility").
On the other hand, he warned not to be deceived by the empty words of those who ridicule chastity or the capacity for self-control. For, the strength of a future married love depends on the strength of the actual commitment lived already in courtship, of learning true love sustained in "a chastity that implies abstaining from all sexual relations outside marriage" (Cfr. St. John Paul II, Meeting with the new generations, Uganda, February 6, 1993).
The order of the heart
One can see how the teachings on chastity expounded by St. John Paul II coincide with what is set forth in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, promulgated by him: "The engaged are called to live chastity in continence. In this trial they should see a discovery of mutual respect, an apprenticeship in fidelity and the hope of receiving each other from God. They will reserve for the time of marriage the specific manifestations of tenderness of conjugal love. They should help each other to grow in chastity" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 2350).
In his catecheses on human love, in the context of showing how chastity is at the heart of conjugal spirituality, he affirmed: "Chastity is living in the order of the heart. This order allows the development of 'affective manifestations' in the proportion and meaning proper to them" (St. John Paul II, Man and Woman Created Them, Catechesis 131, September 14, 1984).
Furthermore, on another occasion he explained: "When God created us, he gave us more than one way to 'talk' to each other. In addition to expressing ourselves through words, we also express ourselves through our bodies. Gestures are like 'words' that reveal who we are. Sexual acts are like 'words' that reveal our heart. The Lord wants us to use our sexuality according to His plan. He expects us to 'speak' by telling the truth. Honest sexual 'language' demands a lifelong commitment of faithfulness. Giving your body to another person means giving everything to that person. However, if you are not married, admit that you may change your mind in the future. Therefore, total self-giving would be absent. Without the bond of marriage, sexual relations are false, and for Christians marriage means sacramental marriage" (Cf. St. John Paul II, Meeting with the new generations, Uganda, February 6, 1993).
This last point made by St. John Paul II leads us to consider that love has its affective and physical expressions according to the stage it is in. In this sense, courtship is the unique and unrepeatable time of the promise, not that of married life. Therefore, the mutual treatment in a Christian courtship has to be that of two people who love each other but who have not given themselves totally to each other in the sacrament of marriage. For this reason, the engaged couple must learn to discover the meaning and experience of modesty; this will lead them to be delicate in their dealings and in the manifestations of affection, avoiding occasions that can place the other in limiting circumstances (cf. K. Wojtyla, "Love and Responsibility").
To discourage the contrary can lead to nurturing an improper intimacy - determining it reductively to the sexual - and this does not unite, but separates (cf. St. John Paul II, Man and Woman Created Them, Catechesis 41, September 24, 1980). Moreover, they would come to see each other as an object that satisfies their own personal desire, instead of seeing each other as a person to whom love inclines them to give themselves (Cf. St. John Paul II, Man and Woman Created Themselves, Catechesis 32, July 23, 1980).
Finally, it should be emphasized that in order to achieve "living in the order of the heart", we must not forget that we can count on the grace of God to achieve it: "Abide in Christ: this is the essential thing for each one of you. Abide in him by listening to his voice and following his precepts. In this way you will know the truth that sets you free, you will find the Love that transforms and sanctifies. In fact, everything acquires a new meaning and value when considered in the light of the person and teaching of the Redeemer" (Cf. Meeting with the youth of Lombardy, June 20, 1992).
Bachelor of Theology from the University of Navarra. Licentiate in Spiritual Theology from the University of the Holy Cross, Rome.
