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Love as an Action


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LOVE AS AN ACTION

 

A Treatise on Love by His Excellency Holy Sir Nicolas, Equestor-Imperator and Praefectus Castrorum of the Supreme Order of Exalted Owyn, on the day of his taking of vows, re-swearing himself to lifetime service to GOD

 

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Love.  The greatest gift.  It was GOD who loved us so and, because of his love, gave us the fruit off the vine, the plant from the earth, the gift of music, and the gift of art.  And because GOD first loved us do we know how to love others.

 

But what is this gift?  What is this calling?  What is it to love?  For many, man’s low capacity for self-control harms love.  For to love is a great responsibility, as we are sharing the feeling that GOD first demonstrated to us in infinite measure and for perpetuity.  And we have lost that feeling of love.  Faced with problems and disappointments, many people will try to escape from their responsibility: escape in selfishness, escape in sexual pleasure, escape in drugs, escape in violence, escape in indifference and cynical attitudes. But today, I propose to you the option of love, which is the opposite of escape.

 

We are meant to love.  It shows our devotion to GOD.  We are to love our spouse, our kin, our neighbors, and our work.  Yes, our work we should love as well.  Take the craft that GOD has blessed us with and create a masterpiece.  Become an artist in His eyes.  Those that make music, dance, sing, paint, and sculpt show their love in their art.  And through this love, they honor GOD.  Of course, not all are called to be artists in the specific sense of the term. Yet, as the Scrolls have it, all men and women are entrusted with the task of crafting their own life: in a certain sense, they are to make of it a work of art, a masterpiece.  And yes, even the farmer working the field and the blacksmith crafting a horseshoe can make art in the shoe and the soil.

 

So that is how we can love.  But what is love?  Love is selfless.  Love is compassion.  Love is giving.  It is NOT an emotion.  It is an action.  I will demonstrate.  How does a man love his wife?  He picks her flowers from the edge of the road as he heads home from work.  He compliments her food, even if the bread was old and stale.  He holds her when she is sad, and comforts and heals her when she is hurt.  He shares his worldly possessions.  He finds her beautiful, even when she is looking her worst.  Are any of these emotions?  No.  They are actions.  Love is an action.

 

But many have chosen not to act when they profess love.  The great danger for family life, in the midst of any society whose idols are pleasure, comfort and independence, lies in the fact that people close their hearts and become selfish.  And it goes beyond family and extends to all we do.

 

Tell me, which man loves his country more?  Is it the man who sits on the street corner proclaiming his love of his country every day of the week?  Or is it the man who never once mentions his love of country to anyone, but goes out and slays the monster threatening his neighbors?  It is the latter, who acts upon his love.

 

Which man loves his neighbor more?  The pious man who hoards books of song and dance to himself in order to keep man from knowing such non-theological pleasure?  Or the man who delights his neighbors time and time again with his deep basso voice and fine dancing?  It is the latter, who acts upon his love.

 

It is the acting man who loves.  The acting man who can fulfill his life and demonstrate the love of GOD.  For He made us to be great.  Man is called to a fullness of life which far exceeds the dimensions of his earthly existence, because it consists in sharing the very life of GOD. The loftiness of this supernatural vocation reveals the greatness and the inestimable value of human life even in its temporal phase.

 

And how do we share our life with GOD?  Through love.

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"I could not be more honored to call Sir Nicolas my brother under God," earnestly spoke Holy Sir Armand upon reviewing the thesis.

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