Dear Gustav,

A priest needs to have the experience of being happily in love, for sure. We were made for love and no-one is truly alive or truly human until he learns to love.

The problem is, we usually associate or limit love to its expression in the relationship between a man and a woman. However, that is not the sum of our experience of love; we love in a far richer variety of ways.

There is the human love of parents for their children, a gratuitous love that is often the source of much suffering and most always at the cost of sacrifice (the sleepless nights children often cost parents when they are infants, and again when they are teenagers). Constantly they are watching out for what is best for their child, without any thought of how or when or if they will be paid back for what they are giving, thats love.

There is also the love of the child for his parent. When he is young it is usually a trusting, grateful love that seeks to learn from and correspond to the love he receives from them; when he is older it grows in generosity and sacrifice.

We have the love of a man for his country, which makes him willing to die so that others can be free and safe. And the love of the husband and father who toils and wears himself out to make ends meet for his family. And the love that moves volunteers to give time in hospitals, orphanages, rest homes and camps for the disadvantaged. The heroism of the firefighter and policeman, the doctor and the nurse, who are obviously not in it only for the money, for there are much safer and less nerve-wracking ways to make a living. As long as we are among humans we are surrounded by love. Not always perfect, but it tends to bring out the best in us and makes this world with all its imperfections a wonderful place to live in. It is what brings us hope and joy.

Then there is also a more spiritual love. The love Christ had for us in dying on the Cross, the love that drives the contemplative to squander his life in total abandon to his vocation, the love that moves a priest to forego the choice of human love and follow Christ, his love for his neighbor in service and the gift of himself.

Dating and marriage is one path that love takes, but in essence love is one and the same. Loving is giving yourself. The lessons learned in one form of love can help us understand and give ourselves properly in another form or path of love. So when a priest gives advice about love, his own experience of giving himself, of not seeking himself in his own act of love in following his vocation, the experience he has of receiving his parents unconditional love and Gods unconditional love in Christ, is what he uses and applies to help the couples he is guiding as they face the challenges of their own vocation towards married love. The obstacles are always the same, our egotism and selfishness. The path is always the same, giving ourselves.

That is what he transmits to people.

If he can help people to put God at the center of their relationships in dating and marriage there will be many more happy marriages. He can give them very good advice about love if he is constantly renewing and living sincerely his own vocation to love. And the example of his fidelity to his vocation and the sacrifice God has asked of him is generally very reassuring and encouraging for those he directs.

God bless.