The Death of Unconditional Love

[JimG]

Like unsuspecting characters in an Agatha Christie novel, we are all witnesses to the commission of a murder still in progress, carried out in slow motion. It is happening so slowly, and its ongoing occurrence is so protracted, so pervasive, and so familiar that we haven’t sensed the magnitude of the violence being done or the loss we’re incurring.

The victim is unconditional love. All of us are witnesses. Most of us are guilty.

I was startled to read Doug Mainwaring’s analysis of the many ways in which unconditional love is being stripped from our society, our families, our children. But I don’t think it has been happening so slowly. It’s just that we haven’t been paying attention to how quickly it has been eating away at our hearts.

The Death of Unconditional Love

 

[CatholicSpirit]

Likewise, easy, no-fault divorce has played an enormous role in the death of unconditional love. Marriage went from being a permanent, lifelong relationship to a temporary one.

So very true.

 

[jinglebelle]

So,heterosexual marriage has always included unconditional love,we are presumably deluded or simply having a laugh.

 

[Beryllos]

Rumors of its death are greatly exaggerated.

Sorry, I only skimmed the article and will read it in full when I have a moment, but is the author saying something has changed, or that a change is in the making? I believe otherwise, that unconditional love has been rare in every historical era, simply due to human frailty. There has always been, and certainly still remains, room for improvement. We pray: Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven; and let us always do our part, with God’s help, to bring his kingdom nearer.

 

[JimG]

Rumors of its death are greatly exaggerated.

Sorry, I only skimmed the article and will read it in full when I have a moment, but is the author saying something has changed, or that a change is in the making? I believe otherwise, that unconditional love has been rare in every historical era, simply due to human frailty. There has always been, and certainly still remains, room for improvement. We pray: Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven; and let us always do our part, with God’s help, to bring his kingdom nearer.

My experience has been somewhat better, but maybe I grew up in a particularly graced time and place.

Not that everything was perfect, but generally, people who loved put others first. Husbands and wives pledged to forsake all others and remain true to each other for life. In that world, divorce was rare, among both Catholics and Protestants. The couples who lived in my neighborhood grew old together and were only parted by death. They accepted children as gifts and not burdens. They did not eliminate unwanted children before they were born. My sibings and friends did not grow up knowing that we were alive only by the “choice” of our parents, and that we might have unknown deceased siblings who were not so lucky.

Contraception was not widely available nor widely accepted. Sex was reserved for marriage. Men and women respected each other without trying to use one another. We took delight in being men and women and would not have thought of trying to be genderless, uniform, or gender ‘flexible.’

One consequence of the sexual revolution has been a widespread cynicism. I would urge a complete reading of the article to get the full sense of the author’s thoughts.

 

[edwest2]

I lived through the same time period and echo everything written above. Commitment meant putting your spouse, your children, your relatives and your neighbors in cooperation, not separation.

1968 was the pivotal year for the Sexual - without love - Revolution. Strangers came into our neighborhoods to encourage us to have no strings attached sex or just live with our girlfriends. And they lived out this false freedom while some moms and dads wondered: “Why?” In 1970, the media, along with a new media called ‘graphic porn,’ began to slowly poison the Body of Christ in the West. Sex without consequences would lead to 1973 and legalized abortion. The Women’s Liberation Movement was also getting a lot of media attention. “Sisters! Throw off the chains of your oppression!” What chains? Men - that’s us, guys. We were “male chauvenist pigs” who only treated women like sex objects. I, and my classmates, were taught to treat everyone with respect. And when a guy met a young lady, we were both on the same page.

It took decades of slow, gradual conditioning. I lived through it. And it pained me to see it. No one is perfect but the choices being offered us were poisonous and more poisonous as the years passed. I never saw any of these women picketing topless bars or strip clubs. But the pornographers knew that porn would cause addiction and future rupture the relationships men should have with women.

I lived in a working class neighborhood that consisted mostly of woodframe houses, but we were a community. No matter where we went to Church, we had shared values.

Ed

 

[Jared2914]

Yes, the lack of unconditional love has certainly caused and continues to cause many problems in the world today, but I think it is a side effect of the rise of atheism. People have rejected religion, instead preferring to be their own gods. The key then is to show how Jesus’ teaching, our religion, leads to happiness. We know from the Bible, some teachings are hard, but there are other teachings that are easy. Start with the easy, move on to the hard when possible.

There are good times and bad times in history. The pendulum has swung against religion in these times, but at some point it should swing back. Just because we are in a bad spot now doesn’t mean it can’t get better in the future. We have to keep doing our best to be beacons of light in the world, doing good and spreading the Gospel.