No man is an island. Papal proclamations and the like.

I tend to fall hook, line, and sinker for anything that John Paul II wrote about human relationships.  He has a way of taking philosophy, theology, and reality and meshing them together so poetically that my  heart literally starts nodding while I read him.  Unlike some who complain about his style, I find reading him fairly effortless.  Must be the English lit major in me rising up again . . .we can be more intuitional than logical at times, and I admit, John Paul II doesn't always explain all of his bases.  But for me, that has never been a problem.   You can convince yourself to accept a lot of things, but your soul doesn't need to be sold when it simply knows that something is true.

Nevertheless, Benedict's clarity has been a welcome infusion into my sporadic reading of papal proclamations.  For as much as I love John Paul's style of elucidation through relational imagery (despite the protests of you phenomenological nay-sayers), Benedict has a way of summarizing concepts that is direct and clear . . . and, well, German.  I like that.  What struck me about this speech, recently delivered to the Rome's Major Seminary - on the eve of the feast of Our Lady of Confidence, no less - was how he captured all of the mystery and poetry of John Paul II's insights about love and man's purpose, but synthesized it so much more concisely.   

"Man is not an absolute, being able to isolate himself and behave according to his own will.  This goes against the truth of our being.  Our truth is, above all, that we are creatures, creatures of God, and we live in relationship with the Creator.  We are rational beings, and only by accepting this relationship do we enter into truth, otherwise we fall into falsehood and, in the end, are destroyed by it."

Read the rest here.  It's good stuff.

He talks about everything that has been on my mind these last few months.  Love, and what it really means in practice.  The impossibility of existing or thriving as an isolated island.  How we, as human beings, need each other to experience the love of God, even when that love demands sacrifice, vulnerability, and pain.  The absolute necessity of bringing every aspect of our lives into the light and being whole.  How the truth and its light set us free and ultimately allow each one us to heal, even if it reveals all our ugliness and scars along the way.  How love means putting the good of the other person first, even when you've been hurt and it means you will continue to hurt.  That concept of dying to self for the good of another.  And what that all means when you're facing reality and crying out for both mercy and justice.  What using the word "love" demands from you - when that love is a reality but nothing like you expected.  When love cannot die, but must be somehow reshaped.

Amazing how the Pope realized that he needed to say something about all that.

"You probably all know St. Augustine's beautiful words: 'Dilige et fac quod vis -- Love and do what you will.'  What Augustine says is the truth, if we have truly understood the word 'love.'  'Love, and do what you will,' but we must really be penetrated by communion with Christ, having identified ourselves with his death and resurrection, being united to him in the communion of his body.  By participation in the sacraments, by listening to the word of God, the Divine Will, the divine law really enters our will, our will identifies with his, they become only one will and thus we are really free, we can really do what we will, because we love with Christ, we love in truth and with truth."