Feast of the Holy Family
December 31, 2006
FIFTH REFLECTION: “Love is the choice to accept people as they are.”
To accept people as they are is to love like God, who loves us in spite of our sins and weaknesses. God’s love for us has no conditions. God doesn’t say I’ll love you if you do such and such. Or I’ll die for you if you do this or that. God simply loves us. He invites us to change, to become like him, but he still loves us even when we fall or fail to live up to our full potential. God’s love for us is simply unconditional.
Does your spouse, your children, your parents have to earn your love? What subtle and perhaps not so subtle messages are you giving them? Perhaps, I’ll love you if you stop smoking, or if you stop drinking, or if you lose weight. I’ll love you if you get good grades, excel at sports or make more money.
In the late seventies a movie titled “Tribute”, starring Jack Lemmon and Bobby Benson, taught a very important lesson about acceptance. The movie was about a father (Jack Lemmon) dieing of cancer. He hasn’t been in contact with his son (Bobby Benson) for years because of a divorce. Before he dies the father wants to reconnect with his son, so he invites the young man, now in his early twenties, to his California beach house.
The son doesn’t know about his father’s cancer. The father doesn’t want sympathy but a genuine relationship. Things don’t seem to be going well between father and son. They are constantly arguing and finding fault.
Growing up without his father, the son had an idealized image of what his father was like, and Jack Lemmon doesn’t quite measure up. Likewise, having been separated from his son since the boy’s early childhood, the father has an idealized notion of his son, which the son can’t live up to.
In a particularly stirring moment in the movie, Jack Lemmon grabs Benson by his shirt collar and exclaims: “I may not be the father you always wanted, but did it ever occur to you that you’re not the son I always wanted?” [Translation: Son you don’t love me and I don’t love you because we haven’t yet accepted each other as we are.] Now that’s powerful drama!
It’s only when the son begins to accept his dad as he is and not as he would want him to be.... when he realizes that his father is just a guy; not superman or some other noble hero, that he can begin to love. Likewise, it’s only when the father accept his son as he is and not as he would want him to be, that he can begin to love.
The feelings of attraction that we have for idealized figures is called infatuation or romanticization. Real love is about accepting people warts and all as they are, and not how we think they should be.
Our guest speaker last October for Respect Life Sunday, whose name escapes right now, told us the story of a New Jersey dad of seven. The last child, a girl, was born with Down Syndrome. In the eyes of the world she was less than perfect, but none the less, her dad loved her and when that she was old enough to sit on his shoulders her dad walked up and down the street where he lived knocking on every door and introducing his daughter “Meagan” to all his neighbors. Now’s that’s a dad who understood that “love means accepting people as they are.”
Where’s the Kleenex when you need it?
To accept people as they are is to love like God, who loves us in spite of our sins and weaknesses. God’s love for us has no conditions. God doesn’t say I’ll love you if you do such and such. Or I’ll die for you if you do this or that. God simply loves us. He invites us to change, to become like him, but he still loves us even when we fall or fail to live up to our full potential. God’s love for us is simply unconditional.
Does your spouse, your children, your parents have to earn your love? What subtle and perhaps not so subtle messages are you giving them? Perhaps, I’ll love you if you stop smoking, or if you stop drinking, or if you lose weight. I’ll love you if you get good grades, excel at sports or make more money.
In the late seventies a movie titled “Tribute”, starring Jack Lemmon and Bobby Benson, taught a very important lesson about acceptance. The movie was about a father (Jack Lemmon) dieing of cancer. He hasn’t been in contact with his son (Bobby Benson) for years because of a divorce. Before he dies the father wants to reconnect with his son, so he invites the young man, now in his early twenties, to his California beach house.
The son doesn’t know about his father’s cancer. The father doesn’t want sympathy but a genuine relationship. Things don’t seem to be going well between father and son. They are constantly arguing and finding fault.
Growing up without his father, the son had an idealized image of what his father was like, and Jack Lemmon doesn’t quite measure up. Likewise, having been separated from his son since the boy’s early childhood, the father has an idealized notion of his son, which the son can’t live up to.
In a particularly stirring moment in the movie, Jack Lemmon grabs Benson by his shirt collar and exclaims: “I may not be the father you always wanted, but did it ever occur to you that you’re not the son I always wanted?” [Translation: Son you don’t love me and I don’t love you because we haven’t yet accepted each other as we are.] Now that’s powerful drama!
It’s only when the son begins to accept his dad as he is and not as he would want him to be.... when he realizes that his father is just a guy; not superman or some other noble hero, that he can begin to love. Likewise, it’s only when the father accept his son as he is and not as he would want him to be, that he can begin to love.
The feelings of attraction that we have for idealized figures is called infatuation or romanticization. Real love is about accepting people warts and all as they are, and not how we think they should be.
Our guest speaker last October for Respect Life Sunday, whose name escapes right now, told us the story of a New Jersey dad of seven. The last child, a girl, was born with Down Syndrome. In the eyes of the world she was less than perfect, but none the less, her dad loved her and when that she was old enough to sit on his shoulders her dad walked up and down the street where he lived knocking on every door and introducing his daughter “Meagan” to all his neighbors. Now’s that’s a dad who understood that “love means accepting people as they are.”
Where’s the Kleenex when you need it?
