Love, Sweet Love

An interesting piece.  Excerpts:

Pope Benedict offers this, in his encyclical Caritas in Veritate: “All people feel the interior impulse to love authentically: love and truth never abandon them completely, because these are the vocation planted by God in the heart and mind of every human person.”

...For both [Bishop Fulton Sheen and Charlie Sheen], there is the expectation of extraordinary, larger-than-life love. For Fulton, that expectation is fulfilled in God’s love—a love that is sacramental, sacrificial, unfailing, healing, challenging, and everlasting. Even in Charlie’s case, there’s the expectation that someone—even if it’s the other person in the relationship—“seeks the good of the beloved…is ready, and even willing, for sacrifice.” (Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est, §6).

The difference is the type of love—something Fulton laid out clearly: “Love exists on three different levels: the sex level, the friendship-love, and the sacramental.” His description of the first type sadly matches an all-too-familiar tabloid story: “Because it cares only for its own rapture and its own fulfillment, such love (sex-love) quickly turns to hate when no longer satisfied.”

Each in his own way, both Sheens tried to prove that “Life is worth living”—or at least my life is worth living. Each in his own way tried to live with freedom, and proclaim the truth...