Love and Intimacy

   Our language has become sexualized.  Words that should not infer sex are now loaded with underlying sexual implications.  When I was young if someone were to say they were having a “gay old time” it meant they were having fun, enjoying themselves.  Today such an expression would imply homosexuality for many.  It’s the same word but the commonly understood definition has changed over the years.

   Even the word love gets confused with sexual relations rather than a giving of one to another; it suggests a physical relationship that may not exist.  We talk of “making love” when what we really mean is having sexual relations.  The meanings have become blurred.  Because of the blurring the beauty of true love is sometimes lost in the physical.

 If one says they are intimate with another it usually is understood that they have a sexual relationship with that person.  But intimacy really has no sexual inference; it is an extremely close relationship, not necessarily a physical one.  Once again, a beautiful relationship has become sexualized.

   The love and intimacy we should be searching for is that between us and our God.  Forget the physical and sexual connotations and seek love on the deeply spiritual level.  It is there that true love can be found.  Not only with our Lord but with each other.  The love of a husband and wife is to be a love of total giving of one to the other.  The love of family is a love of forgiveness and intimacy beyond the physical.

   Spiritual love of one another and of God is so much more intense and overwhelming that any physical act.  The love of God and of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit is a love that saves; a love that never ends; a love for all eternity.  This is the love our hearts and souls truly yearn for.

Father teach us to love.

A love of self-sacrifice.

A love of total commitment.

A love eternal and everlasting.

Amen