Love and Romance

Part of an essay by Father Dwight Longenecker:

While many emotions perceived as ‘love’ can be explained with these crude theories, a problem remains, and the problem is this: everyone everywhere who believes in love believes that whatever love is, and wherever it comes from, what it  most expressly is not, is naked self interest. All the great poets and preachers, all who have sighed and swooned and died and crooned about love believe that love is not self interested, but self sacrificial. The most sublime lines on love have not been written about what the lover can get, but about what the love can give, and the greatest line on love of all is, “Greater love has no man than this, that a man should lay down his life for his friends.”


Without doubt this self sacrificial love is debased into self interest, but this is not love. It is lust. We have simply misunderstood a distinction in terms. If there is such a thing as love, then it is defined as being interested more in the welfare of the beloved than oneself, and if such a virtue exists, then the mystery of love becomes even greater.

...If such a precious idea is true, or even if one believes it to be true, then we can see why all the worlds’ heroes bear a sword. This most precious gift of love is the greatest treasure, and is worth the most dangerous quest. If earthly love connects us with eternal love, then it connects us with eternal life, and that most precious gift is something that is not only worth a long journey, it is also worth a fight. It is worth a fight because anything so precious must be surrounded by many thieves. Anything so good must be surrounded by much evil, for evil (be definition) wants to destroy what is good, and that is why the hero bears a sword–because love must be fought for, and to win the love of the fair maiden the dragon must first be slain.

You can read the whole piece here, and it's worth your time...