In addition to its early Gothic architecture and stunning simplicity, my residence in Fossanova Abbey also boasts the chapel where Saint Thomas Aquinas died. While COVID has greatly reduced the number of present visitors, past summers were filled with tourists, many of whom quite literally left their mark on the place. The chapel walls are covered with graffitied inscriptions, most attesting to some form of love in a rather standard format: two names, typically inside a heart, the date, and perhaps a further wish.
For instance, right in front of Aquinas, instead of reading the Angelic Doctor’s Summa Theologicae or the Commentary on the Sentences, one can read “Stefano and Milena, 20/02/10 – Stefano, marry me!” Lord only knows if Stefano and Milena are still together, and, if together, married, more than ten years after the fact, but the abundance of such inscriptions points to something much bigger and much deeper than Stefano and Milena. It’s as though the writers wanted to etch themselves into eternity and give their love permanence by carving it into walls that have seen more than 800 years of lives and loves.
The Writing on the Soul
The walls of Aquinas’s chapel are not unique in that they bear these carvings. On the contrary, we know from experience that it’s almost a natural expression of love to carve names into something that will last. I mention this, not to justify the destruction of property, but rather to highlight a characteristic of true love, a quality that we recognize implicitly, even if modern society has denied it. This characteristic of true love is its endurance; true love remains and lasts forever. It seems that the permanence of love isn’t simply to be written on walls; rather, it is written in the very fabric of our souls as a desire, a longing for something that remains.
The Teachings of the Church
In the Catechism, when giving the definition of marriage, we are told that it is through the matrimonial covenant that “a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life” (CCC, 1601). The whole of life: the whole is not just the entire temporal duration, but even the depth of experiences, sufferings, and joys that could push either party to cut that duration short.
This is not to criticize those whose spouses have left them or who have sought separation in order to protect themselves and their children. These are heavy crosses to bear; nonetheless, simply praying for and forgiving their estranged spouse bears witness to the permanence of that bond. Even though there is a physical separation, and even if one party has decided to be unfaithful, the other party can still fulfill their end of the promise.
Speaking in Cordova, Argentina, in 1987, Saint John Paul II explained the same truth in greater depth:
There are those who dare to deny, and even ridicule, the idea of a faithful commitment for the whole of one’s life. These people—you can be well-assured—unfortunately do not know what it means to love: for the one who does not decide to love forever, it is difficult to truly love even for a single day. True love—like Christ’s—implies a complete self-giving, not egoism; it always seeks the good of the beloved, not its own egotistical satisfaction. To refuse to admit that married love can and requires that it last until death, supposes the denial of the capability of a complete and definitive self-giving; it means denying what is more profoundly human: freedom and spirituality.
If you can’t love forever, you can’t even love for a day
The late pontiff has hit on two key points. First, the one who cannot love forever, cannot love for a day. There is a beautiful simplicity in the Pope’s words; it is apparent that a person who refuses to love forever, the one who sets conditions or qualifications on their love, isn’t capable of true love. Secondly, the freedom of the human person is intimately caught up in the decision to love forever. In other words, to deny a “forever love” is to deny freedom; to refuse to love forever is not to be “free”, but rather, is the destruction of freedom itself.
One of the most important purposes of marriage and even of religious vows – though certainly not the only – is to provide that stability and assurance to a relationship. How can a person truly reveal themselves, truly give all of themselves in a relationship if that bond isn’t made permanent?
Deny forever love, deny human freedom
Modern society in general tends to argue that by rejecting the restraints and constraints of marriage, couple are “freer”. If things go wrong in the relationship, it’s easy to back out. Keeping options open, it is claimed, keeps us free.
But is this claim justified? The winner of the 2015 New York Times’ writing competition on the topic of “Modern Love” hints that, even if she believes in and lives by that axiom of the modern world, there is still a deep sense of longing. Although written several years ago, the words are as timely now as they were in 2015.
In her essay, Jordana Narin writes about a boy with whom she has an uncommitted, undefined relationship. They occasionally exchange texts, met up, share drinks and beds, all within the confines of an unconfining amorphous state of affairs.
When her father would ask about their relationship, if they were dating, she replies:
“People don’t go steady nowadays,” I explain. “No one says that anymore. And almost no one does it. Women today have more power. We don’t crave attachment to just one man. We keep our options open. We’re in control.” But are we? I’ve brooded over the same person for the last four years. Can I honestly call myself empowered if I’m unable to share my feelings with him? Could my options be more closed? Could I be less in control? My father can’t understand why I won’t tell Jeremy how I feel. To me, it’s simple. As involved as we’ve been for what amounts to, at this point, nearly a quarter of my life, Jeremy and I are technically nothing, at least as far as labels are concerned.
The Meaning of Freedom
“Could my options be more closed?” The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard argued that freedom in the abstract is the possibility of making a choice, but that freedom only becomes real or actualized when the choice is made. To “hold one’s options open” by never committing fully is, in fact, to end up enslaved.
A Porsche is a magnificent car, and to drive one must be a fascinating experience. Yet, if the Porsche sits parked for ages on end, it’s not as though it will always be able to run. Over time, it will rust, break down, and, when the time comes to drive it, it will no longer work.
We could say that not making a choice is, in fact, to choose: it’s the decision not to commit, not to use freedom as it ought to be used, and hence, all the little decisions and actions that follow are consequences of that decision. To live in an open-ended relationship, one without a permanent commitment, is not to find freedom, but to lose it by refusing to make it concrete.
The one who chooses to live in a state of such uncommitted freedom is condemned to a partial relationship, one perhaps without some risks, but certainly without the fullness of love. It seems there is much more lost than gained.
The Dilemma
This is the dilemma. No one is under the illusion that married life is easy or perfect, or that the sacrament takes away all difficulties and challenges. However, since all sacraments give grace, the grace of marriage gives couples all the strength and help they will need to overcome those difficulties and not simply survive (as many couples are content to do), but to thrive: “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10).
True love is a commitment. We could even say it is dangerous because the entire gift of one’s self means being open to the possibility of hurt. Yet, as C. S. Lewis phrases it in his book, The Four Loves:
There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket safe, dark, motionless, airless it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.
Heaven and hell are both permanent as well. The irony is that a permanent love offers us a glimpse of heaven on earth, whereas a perpetual instability, a forever uncertainty or “maybe”, resembles hell.
