Real love

What is married love? It is triune--the lover, the beloved, and God. It seems that we forget that God must be the third partner in marriage for it to be real love, and that He must always be our first and best love. We love the ones we love because we see the goodness in them that only God can put there. He has placed in each one of us a longing for the infinite which is Himself; and, without God, no human love can satisfy our desire for infinite love. Only God can do this. It is only in loving God with and in our beloved, selflessly and sacrificially, that we truly love him; and that love which is real never dies but grows stronger with each passing day. As Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote, "Two human loves make one divine." And, as Dante said of Beatrice, "She looks on Heaven, and I look on her." But in looking on her, Dante saw the Heaven which Beatrice saw; and so she led him to God. This is the lifework of marriage: to lead each other to Heaven. Only real love can do this; and real love never fails.