Columbans
U K

St. Columbans Widney Manor Rd.Knowle, W/Midlands B93 9AB Tel: 01564 772096, Fax: 01564 770500 colsol@btinternet.com

Love one another

Deus Caritas Est
(God Is Love)

Pope Benedict XVI
First Encyclical

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 25, 2006

"All you need is love," the pope suggests over 71 pages of text.

Full text available at
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20051225_deus-caritas-est_en.html


Here are some excerpts from the document:-

"Today, the term 'love' has become one of the most frequently used and misused of words. ... We speak of love of country, love of one's profession, love between friends, love of work, love between parents and children, love of neighbor and love of God. Amid this multiplicity of meanings, however, one in particular stands out: love between man and woman, where body and soul are inseparably joined and human beings glimpse an apparently irresistible promise of happiness."

*****
"Nowadays, Christianity of the past is often criticized as having been opposed to the body; and it is quite true that tendencies of this sort have always existed. Yet the contemporary way of exalting the body is deceptive. Eros, reduced to pure 'sex,' has become a commodity, a mere 'thing' to be bought and sold, or rather, man himself becomes a commodity."

*****

"Even if eros is at first mainly covetous and ascending, a fascination for the great promise of happiness - in drawing near to the other, it is less and less concerned with itself, increasingly seeks the happiness of the other, is concerned more and more with the beloved, bestows itself and wants to 'be there for' the other. The element of agape (Unconditional love) thus enters into this love."


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