Falling in love is one of the most exciting experiences in life. In conversations with young people, one cannot fail to capture the notable change in their expression and tone of voice. I can only best describe it in the words of a song as a ‘crazy little thing called love.’
But because they are still young, they cannot yet fully grasp the finer differences in experiences like admiration, infatuation, and love. What one often encounters is what they casually and generically call ‘having a crush.’
What has never failed to amuse me is their answer to my question, “What is the name of your crush?”
Still with a love-struck gaze, they reply, “I don’t know, Father!”
Despite this, we cannot and must never dismiss their experience as something trivial. Every noble human experience is a gift from God. If these are properly channeled, they can be transforming powers that build character and lifetime convictions.
In his meeting with the youth, Pope Francis asked, “What is the most important subject you have to learn in life? To learn how to love. This is the challenge that life offers you: to learn how to love. (University of Sto. Tomas, January 18, 2015)”
He warned us that there is a danger that threatens our capacity to love and this is “accumulating information without knowing what to do with it. (Ibid.)” With the overload of digital information we no longer have time or leisure to properly process and categorize all that data.
Pope Francis offered wonderful advice to cure this ‘computer psychology’ that converts the young into superficial and static youth museums: “To be wise, use three languages: think well, feel well and do well. (Ibid.)”
The order in this advice is important and must be observed. Very often, we place more emphasis on the second stage because it’s easier to feel than to think. It’s like having a crush without even knowing the name of one’s crush. How often have we heard the misleading and foolhardy romantic declaration, “I don’t care who he is or what he is, what matters is I love him!”
We cannot love what we do not know. And we cannot properly love what we do not adequately understand. If we give free reign to our passions and emotions, a true and lasting love cannot materialize. Thus, the subject of our love must first be known and prayed about well.
This first stage of thinking well allows us to not only understand ‘what or who we seek to love’ but it also helps us to understand ourselves. We become more mature because we open our capacity for a greater and unselfish love when we don’t force things and persons to our ‘limited’ expectations. We learn to respect how things unfold within God’s plans and other people’s lives.
This capacity is what Pope Francis describes as ‘allowing oneself to be surprised by God’s love. (Ibid.)’ He says that this is “The challenge of love. God reveals Himself through surprises. (Ibid.)” In contrast, the digital information age we live in seeks to reprogram our capacity for surprises by seemingly giving us ‘all the answers.’ But if left unprocessed, we become enslaved and are led astray by our mixed feelings.
The surprise comes in many ways, but mainly two types: a positive and a negative one. Naturally, we always love positive surprises in the form of birthdays, anniversaries, greetings, etc. But life also has its not-so-pleasing surprises: illnesses, injustices, misunderstandings and death.
If we have first thought (prayed) about things well, we will be able to feel well about the different surprises that God sends us in life. We will not rebel or despair because we know that He allows them and often have a good reason for appearing, especially the negative ones.
Moreover, negative surprises temper and forge our feelings and reactions. This is because they humble us, make us vulnerable, less secure and in the end lead us to trust more in God’s Fatherly designs for us and we come out stronger and wiser.
As a consequence, we will be able to do or act well because our actions have been previously pondered, with a purified and weighed intention, and with reasonable and just chosen means. All these, the Holy Father says, ‘will guarantee a good life’ and ‘through that love let that information bear fruit. (Ibid.)’