In the previous chapter we saw that Ethics puts forward norms and precepts not to lessen the strength of tendencies and instincts, but to guide them towards reaching high goals. These goals can and must be assumed as one’s own. By so doing they are no longer exterior and strange, but become intimate, like an inner voice. I realize that in order to accomplish the ideal in my life I must adopt certain attitudes. It is a duty which I cherish because it means the path to my full development.

My criteria for checking and controlling behavior must be internal and creative, rather than external and passive. Truly moral behavior is not what I do of necessity because it is forced from outside, but what I do in virtue of the ideals, aspirations and motivations I have adopted with such enthusiasm that I turn them into the interior impulse of my own activity. In education it is decisive to realize that nothing is external to one’s person when it constitutes the meaning of one’s action, the North Pole, as it were, guiding the authentic development of one’s personality. It is extremely important to know exactly how we are made, what forces integrate our being, and how they must be assembled in order to achieve a fully human manner of behaving and being.

The presence of sexual energy can provoke serious psychological and moral problems in a person. A mass of awkward questions is raised by premarital, marital and extramarital relations, by homosexual ties, masturbation, compulsory or voluntary celibacy, etc. For keys to resolving such problems we must know exactly which aspirations must control our personal dynamism and the criteria of moral behavior arising from the human condition, seen as a whole.

Until a few years ago the ethical criteria in questions of sex was doubly orientated: one biologically and another juridically. Sex acts within matrimony which complied with the normal conditions of human nature were considered licit. Modern ethical research complements these criteria with another, totally personal one: the intrinsic dynamism of love as understood in its fullest and most demanding sense.

Of what does this dynamism of love consist and how does it merge with instinctive tendencies? To answer this important question, there is need for a correct training for love. It is in no way sufficient to have biological, medical and psychological sex information; thorough investigation of the analyses of the human person by modern philosophical anthropology is required.

Anthropology teaches that man, being spiritual and therefore intelligent, does not merely respond to stimulae. That is the case of the animal which responds automatically to the stimulae it receives. It is hungry; it sees food and eats it. When in rut, it sees a partner and mates. By so doing it follows the lines marked out by its species in order to perpetuate itself. The human person, however, is not a captive of stimulae for one sees the realities which stimulate him. When hungry, one sees food, and in it discovers nourishment. As it belongs to someone, one cannot merely take hold of it, but must buy it. One may then eat it, but is capable of denying oneself and giving it to another, or keeping it for another moment. Between undergoing stimulae and responding to them, there must be a mediating reflection and option. One must think about the meaning of eating such food. The significance: to satisfy hunger is patent, and needs little reflection. The meaning, however, is not something immediate; to discover it one must rise above one’s situation for it is in virtue of the meaning that I must decide with regard to action. To behave as a person, one cannot submit to the stimulae received at every moment, but must open up to the meaning of the action to be taken in response to such stimulae. One does not feel compelled to respond in a certain manner, but is called to give an answer that is free, conscious, creative and meaningful in accord with the ideal one pursues in life.

This is possible only if I step back from the stimulae and the immediate interests they arouse. I feel hungry and see something appetizing. My immediate interest is in eating it and satisfying myself. But I can step back and relinquish it. When I overcome the automatic link between stimulus and response, I begin to be free. Our whole life is a process of the conquest of liberty, which is effected when we stop fusing ourselves with the surroundings and begin to encounter them. Fusing oneself with something is not being free. By stepping back, not to withdraw from, but to create a relation of encounter, we rise to freedom.

The fetus is quite at home in the womb, feeling protected in the warm surroundings in which it is merged. It is a different being from the mother, but lives in dependance upon her to whom it is totally attached. It has no independence whatsoever. Birth is traumatic because the foetus loses its shelter and is separated from the mother. This separation means, on the one hand, the loss of the immediacy of fusion and, on the other, the possibility of establishing a higher form of union: that of encounter. Biology stresses the inescapable need for the new born infant and the mother to form a web of affection, that is, a form of encounter.

The web of affection, established with the mother first and then with the father and siblings, constitutes a place of refuge for the baby; it is similar to the mother’s womb insofar as the union is, to a certain extent, a form of fusion. The baby does not yet step back from the beings around it to whom it is closely bound. But it is the law of life that this close bond must diminish. The centripetal force holding the family together will be counteracted by the centrifugal force pushing it towards school, childhood friendships and, later, towards the new world of love.

The power of sexuality will be sufficiently strong to overcome family ties, with which we are born and which, in a certain way, are automatic and merging. At the right moment, the young person will meet someone from outside the trusted family world, who does not have the same roots, and who may be unknown to them for many years, with whom to establish a new world full of uncertainties.

The adventure of love constitutes the second great trauma in human life, we might almost say a second birth in which the human being goes against the fusion tendency to open up to a relationship of encounter. One relinquishes a lower value in order to gain a higher one. This is a trauma of growth. The human being voluntarily undergoes the difficult experience involved in a step towards a higher form of relationship and a rise to a higher degree of maturity. Giving in to the sexual impulse merely to obtain individual pleasures and satisfy erotic greed does no more than change one form of fusion for another; it does not mature but blocks personal dynamism. Sexual union plays a beneficial role in the process of human development only when it is not reduced to the automatic response to a pleasurable stimulus, but implies the wish to create a new and higher form of personal union.

Eroticism, with its superficial and selfish attitude, does not capture the value of non-fusional relationships; it blocks love in the infant phase. According to Sartre, the erotic caress puts the body of the person caressed in the foreground; one is fused with the body while the person is relegated to second rank. The erotic caress goes from solitude to solitude, from body seen alone to body seen alone. The person who caresses in this manner is fused with the pleasure this gesture produces, but does not establish a genuine relationship with the person whose body he caresses. On the other hand, the truly loving caress affects the person more than the body. I see an old friend and embrace him. What I am really embracing is his person more than his body. In married life, the body plays a decisive role, but it does so insofar as it is the living expression of the person. Viewed in this way the body does not lose any of its powers and faculties; on the contrary, it gives it full force and leads it to fulfil all kinds of energies and possibilities.

For the caress to be personal, one must stand back from the stimulae without withdrawing from them, and must establish an ambit of encounter with the stimulative reality, in this case with the person. Being both perceptive and intelligent, one is destined not to fuse oneself with stimulae, but to establish relationships with the realities which stimulate one. These relationships may hold different qualities. While those of higher quality are being established, one’s union with the realities around becomes more mature, more in accord with one’s real vocation and mission in life.

In contrast, when we form a relationship in order to share our selfish desire to reap pleasurable sensations, we establish a very poor form of union; this creates nothing, but means simply enjoying moments which satisfy some fancy. The relationship between a human and other beings is of high value only when productive in establishing an ambit of interaction which intensifies personal love and creates a home, with all that it involves in creating a new life and being a starting point for establishing unselfish relationships with other social groups.

It is, therefore, not sufficient to practice sexuality between two persons alone in order to give it a relational character. The relation one is destined to realize is the encounter, and many forms of sexual relations which are matters of mere sensorial saturation are not encounters.

Training for love is not reduced to learning an art of loving or techniques for refinement of the senses and passionate enthusiasm. The voluptuous dimension of the senses and of erotic frenzy only accentuate human isolation when they are not held and inspired by a strong desire for genuine friendship. If we wish only to possess what dazzles our instincts, we allow ourselves to be drawn by fascination, which starts a process of vertigo which does not unite but isolates.

When we love truly, above all we want the good of the loved one; we are more concerned with giving than receiving. Above all we want to give possibilities of full personal development, which are achieved not by surrendering to mere passing pleasures, but by dedication to high ideals.

Persons who love and do not just wish to possess, never turn the loved one into a means for their own ends, nor do they turn themselves into means for the other. They know that such lowering impoverishes both; it does not respond to their true vocation. They wish to share the presence of the other, live with them and enjoy their physical and spiritual proximity. However, they do not forget that such proximity must not be lived possessively, but according to the discipline imposed by personal values which invite to an encounter and place various demands. We are not born with this discipline, but must strive to learn it and practice it through sacrifice. This sacrifice means relinquishment, but not repression, because it is a form of ordering values which leads us to fulfillment.

Learning a disciplined form of behavior means acquiring the art of living freely and responding to the call of values. Values not only exist, but assert their value and need to be accomplished. One’s vocation as a person and, therefore, one’s duty is to adopt these values in life, which values constitute one’s dignity as a person. We are very noble beings because we are immersed in an order which extends beyond us and spurs us to carry out a range of values. This is the order of love (ordo amoris) or the love relationship with all surrounding realities. To reduce love to merely filling ourselves with enjoyment is to challenge this order; we go against the only way of perfecting ourselves.

Mutual perfection is our highest asset, our ideal. When one loves a person as a person and expresses one’s love corporally with sexual energy, one feels one is exercising power, calming an appetite and satiating greed, but at the same time one knows that at a higher level one is participating in a higher project. This has determined that human beings be born sexed, and hence pointed towards each other in order to establish ambits of love that motivate personal life, and giving rise to new personal lives. Living our love as though it depended totally on our initiative and fancies, we discover that, nevertheless, by this we are carrying out a project which is higher than either of us and thus elevates our various acts of love. Filling them to overflowing, we situate them in the history of the universe. In realizing this dual condition of love, we overcome the risk of reducing the loved one to a means for our own satisfaction.

TO LOVE FREELY IS TO LOVE UNCONDITIONALLY

By ridding ourselves of the tendency to debase the loved one, we gain confidence in love. Without such confidence we would always be on the alert, afraid of being used, manipulated, degraded or of doing the same to another. However, in feeling confident we gain the inner freedom to surrender ourselves. If I know you act in virtue of purely personal interests, what guarantee have I that you will be true in love when those interests are not as satisfied as they are today? Promises of eternal love made on the impulse of passion are not sufficient. There is need for the guarantee given by generosity which places no conditions on loving. Loving forever means loving unconditionally. True love is not subject to time, but wants the loved one to live forever. This unconditional love is natural to free people who have cast off their subjugation to interests and to what is useful, and thereby are capable of constantly acting for the good of the loved one.

This generous, unselfish, altruistic love is not reduced to a mere feeling of attraction towards another person, but responds to a voluntary act. I met you one day and was attracted by some of your personal qualities. I started to get to know you and to establish ties of affection, of commitment. I made plans for the future and at the end of all this process of intimacy I proclaim: I love you, that is: I affirm your being, link with it, commit myself to it, and create an ambit of co-existence with you. These decisive acts in life respond to an act of will, to a free option enlightened by reason.

This exercise of will is complex. It depends on a thousand conditions: intellectual, affectionate, cultural, social, etc. To make a serious option about another person engages not only the sentiments inspired, but also our ideas of love, freedom, institutions, pleasure and sacrifice.

For this reason the capacity to love is not improvised, but requires a whole formation process by which we must clarify ideas, sharpen sensitivity to values, increase the capacity to give priority to those which are higher over those which are lower, gain the power to make firm choices and promises. It is totally inadequate to consider that sexual information is merely explaining the ways of obtaining pleasurable sensations. As the practice of sexuality acquires balance and meaning only when lived fully, such inadequacy is a mistake which carries serious consequences.

It is not enough to know certain details of biology and psychology; the whole personality must be formed according to an unselfish, generous and fruitfully creative attitude.

The mere explanation of how pleasurable sensations are obtained already constitutes, in fact, an incitement to sheer eroticism. It provides not formation for love but deformation; it launches one on a path opposite to that of real love.

Those who confuse preparation for love with sex information usually claim that the concept of unselfish, generous love is an absolutely unattainable utopia. What is realistic, they assert, is to seek satisfaction and give it to those who share this search with us. This is the bird in the hand we all prefer to that ideal love which is presented as the peak of perfection.

It is true that, in principle, the human being prefers immediate gain to uncertain promises. But the formative task consists in opening new horizons to human desire, learning to value what we do not yet have in hand but which calls us to its accomplishment because of its value. Value wants to be adopted and carried out. It is something ideal in the sense that it does not yet exist, but it is not unreal: it is efficient, capable of moving us and directing us towards a very high form of life.

What is appalling is that when we allow ourselves be fascinated by the desire to rule which satiates our instincts, we blind ourselves to understanding the eminent reality of what is valuable and consider it merely dreamlike, if not a prejudice, taboo or evasion which are enemies fo life. Those who promote eroticism do not see beyond instant pleasure; they are immersed in the immediate and have no other horizon than that of satisfying an inclination. They admit no other value than pleasure and a freedom of choice, which in fact is only to choose to enjoy: this is the narrow, stifling circle of eroticism.

Nowadays, our environment seems to be ruled by this myopic way of viewing the relationship of love. But even if in all history there had been but one example of genuine love, it would be sufficient to discover a broader and more liberating horizon than eroticism. Fortunately, examples of generous love are numerous, a form of love which, if not perfect, at least constitutes a constant yearning to free oneself from the tyranny of egoism, exploitation and degrading belittlement. This yearning grows within one due to the asymmetry between the forms of daily relationship and the ideal of love one discovers as an inescapable requirement of one’s being.

Nowadays it is often assumed that it is feasible to remain together only as long as love lasts, understanding love as mere passion. This reduction of love to passion mistakenly lessens human possibilities for co-existence. It is true that there is always also a self-concern in love, because we look also for our own happiness in the surrender to another person. But this search for happiness should not be the primary aim, but a complementary achievement. Something similar occurs also in art. If I play a great musical piece, I put the maximum effort into it in order to bring to life a very valuable reality and live a peak experience. I do not do this only or even primarily for my pleasure. I know that this will follow, but my first intention, which drives my action, is directed to faithfully and generously recreating the work. Immanuel Kant was correct in underlining that an unselfish attitude is basic to all aesthetic experience.

All this shows us that we must recuperate and restore language. At the moment it has been abducted and used to twist the meaning of important human events, rather than to delve into their inmost essence. We must clarify the terms lucidly and forcefully, and repeat them to ourselves in order to imprint them well on our mind: Love does not mean mere passion but involves affection, sentiment and yearning, all of which must be integrated into a voluntary and lucid process of creating an ambit of personal surrender.

"Making love" is a senseless expression, literally without meaning. Furniture is made as are houses and their utensils: gestures of one type or another are made, but love is not made. I do not make love and, by the same reason, I am not master of it. I should not play with it like a fluffy toy that I can calmly put back in its box when I finish. Rather we collaborate in its slow arousal, as the fruit of a progressive encounter and of a wish to create a stable, valuable relationship.

As we mature, we realize that our body is not a tool for us to use. At first it appears that I have a hand, the same as I have a hammer; that I have sexual powers as I have the power to walk and move. But these words are false; they deceive me. I have none of these, for the decisive reason that I have no body, rather I am corporal. I live life corporally at the same time as I live personally, because my body is personal and forms part of my person as a whole. But the person is constituted by the encounter, and not everything given by the encounter is the property of those who make the encounter. It is not the mere output of a productive act, but the fruit of a relationship and hence deserves immense respect. My sexual power is not an instrument at my service, but a potency destined to establish relationships. Hence I cannot put them at stake at will, but only as required by the destiny they must serve. This submission to their goal means dignifying them, whereas reducing them to mere instruments means degrading them.

How is it possible to direct towards establishing unselfish love sexual forces which of themselves are passionate, fairly irrational, and quick to break loose in search of individual satisfactions – more inclined to frenzy than to peaceful surrender? This difficulty must be overcome through preparation for love.

When one becomes accustomed to living unselfishly, seeking the good of others and not being encased in one’s own problems and fancies, one acquires the habit of transcending whatever one is doing at each moment and tending to the good of the other. One is not imprisoned by pleasures, but strives to love the other person for themselves, for their virtues and their defects, their attractive qualities and those which may be slightly annoying. In virtue of such constant contact, this person evolves into something unique. The ambit of life created with them is also unique, as is the child which is the fruit of this encounter. To give origin to something unique requires great creativity; it is very serious precisely because it is a truly originating act.

Maintaining an intimate relationship with realities which are unique, irreplaceable and unchangeable, constitutes a source of energy for living in a loving manner. Every day the premonition that lasting love is impossible is spread further. Love is seen as a brief flame, and many shudder at the mere idea of remaining faithful for life to a matrimonial promise. Why this present difficulty in attaining stable commitments? It is because of attachment to the impressions of the moment, and to the conviction that in life one counts only upon what one has immediately available. If I start from the basis that I have some faculties and some people who allow me to exercise them, as soon as these two possessions exhaust their possibilities I will conclude that love is exhausted and has nothing more to give. By thinking and acting in this way I regrettably forget that the great wealth of those who love is their mutual encounter and its fruit – their home and possible children. A reversible relationship is established between married couples and the home, which in turn effects them; they enrich it, and it enriches them. From this mutual enrichment emerge a thousand new reasons for loving, which replace and surpass the reasons which first kindled the flame of attraction and affection.

I feel attracted to you, and want to find myself with you – as do you. By attempting to find ourselves, we already immerse ourselves in the magnetic field of the encounter and receive the energy and light which encounter gives to those who truly join together. This enables us to know ourselves better, which knowledge increasingly inflames our desire to join together in the most perfect union. By according greater quality to our union, gradually we discover the fruits of the encounter: happiness, enthusiasm, peace, contentment, shelter, celebration. These are an eloquent indication that our life is triumphing; they inspire us to perfect even more our mutual engagement.

ONE DOES NOT HAVE LOVE AT ONE’S COMMAND, BUT MUST PARTICIPATE IN IT

As our form of union ripens, it becomes obvious to us that we are not the masters of our love life, that our most personal and intense activity is a form of participation in a source of life which nurtures us. This is similar to the poet who composes a poem, but knows that he is not its master because it is the fruit of his immersion in the sphere of meaning and life.

Discovering experiences of mutual interchange and their decisive function in our life is indispensable to understanding that married love life integrates different planes or elements: reasons for liking, physical and psychic attraction, common interests. But all should be prompted and joined by a deep desire to achieve a true encounter, which is a source of a high quality of life. If I am not imprisoned by fleeting and selfish satisfactions, but surrender my person to the loved one, it is because I trust in the existence of the phenomenon of personal encounter. This envelops us both, it feeds and builds us internally by placing us in a field of play that surpasses the division between the here and the there, the within and without, mine and yours.

Preparation for love is preparation for encounter or mutual engagement, which means an intermingling of all the spheres comprising the two people. Such intermingling means a total capacity for surrender for the establishment of a relationship of encounter is a voluntary and lucid act, not mere momentary and sentimental exuberance. This act of free will which is genuine love must be carefully prepared. First and foremost this means accepting life and valuing positively all that gives security and protection. This first protective act leads us to accepting other people, trusting them, liking them, and creating with them a web of relationships. This web implies a social order, with its own hierarchy. By immersing ourselves in this network of relationships we learn to make contact, to oblige ourselves, to live experiences of interchange which make us see that we are neither autonomous nor gregarious, but cooperative. This cooperation inspires an attitude of loyalty to the realities which oblige, and, by obliging, uphold and incite.

On discovering this relational nature of the personal being and the laws expressing it – the need to relinquish a lower value in order to attain another that is higher, overcoming selfish solitude in order to establish unselfish relationships, etc. – we begin to discover that the attraction inspired by another person is an element of life which has its own value, but refers to higher values. Similarly, exercising the senses involves a special pleasure which we have experienced since childhood in the oral and anal phases. But, while we experience the richness of relationships, we discover that we should not stop at pleasurable sensations. There remains a wonderful path to tread: the discovery of values, which surpass the individual and becomes the basis of an interchange of experiences which establish an ambit of genuine love and of solid, stable and fruitful co-existence. To tread this path and make this discovery there must be a will to love the other person with total surrender.

Nowadays many young people lack the basic confidence that such an act of will is possible. Rather, they believe that it does not make sense, that it is nonsense. This conviction prevents them from immersing themselves in the sphere of love which is mutual engagement. They remain enclosed within themselves as in a fortress and defend their isolation for fear of losing their independence and security. They must be encouraged to believe that trust dispels doubt, while, on the contrary, mistrust stimulates fear. Fear makes impossible surrender and loyalty, which is the constant creation of what at a certain moment was promised.

The only way to drive away such paralyzing fear is to regain trust. But to regain trust in the possibility of the encounter and genuine love, it is necessary to discover the existence of the different values which call us, to recognize the need to respond to their call, and to give priority to the highest values.

This requires a whole process of formation, which teachers should encourage. It is not enough to express fine ideas on love, we have to train for maturity by means of an action program which enables the child and teenager to grow in terms of true freedom, in the knowledge and grading of values, and in the discovery of the types of reality which inspire people actively to immerse themselves in them in order to realize personal interchange.

Nowadays there is great confusion in evaluating emotions, sentiments and affections and a greater need for clarity and decision in selecting those which are most valuable. A lucid choice is possible only with a clear idea of the magnificence of what we have taken as an ideal. One’s ideal should be to establish the highest forms of unity, which are those which deserve the name of love.

Full capacity for love means esteeming the personality of the loved one and their values, surrendering to them and personal adoption of the attachment felt for their being. I have reasons to choose such and such a person as the goal for my love, but rise above reasons and end by choosing them as a person, far beyond all motivation.

This inner freedom cannot be improvised, but an effort has to be made to achieve it. Small children are very attached to the affectionate web created with the mother and father in the home. They situate themselves in this because it provides protection and security. Throughout life they will discover that there are different ways of inserting themselves, of feeling protected, of actively immersing themselves in realities which offer possibilities of action, that is, values. The art of living as people consists in knowing how to put oneself actively, not passively, into such realities because in this we continue to be a child in the sense of needing and of being dependent upon a type of protection from outside. We must look for shelter more and more in the encounter as an event we collaborate in establishing but which surpasses us.

In the encounter we learn to be autonomous, that is, to be free to give ourselves in love, and to be heteronomous, that is, to be capable of responding actively to values. We give this warm response to what is valuable in itself. The experience is no longer egocentric, even though we know that through it our own personality develops. By opening to this form of value, we leave childhood behind to enter the maturity of grown-ups. This maturity is fully realized when we choose not what satisfies our fancies of the moment, but what enables us to reach the ideal we have assumed as the goal in our life.

The practice of these virtues and others connected with them places one on the road to maturity, forms one, brings one close to perfection, and bestows on him unsuspected inner wealth. In view of this, one gains the necessary perspective to clarify such delicate and subtle matters as the proper understanding of the values of interchange, modesty and married life, and the antivalues of erotic exhibition and pornography. These topics we will broached in the following two chapters.

There we will see clearly that preparation for love and ethical preparation are connected. Preparation for love means preparation for freedom, for entering into a valuable life, for choosing in virtue of an ideal, for carrying out all sorts of reversible experiences, and for transcending each separate act and directing all according to the requirements of our vocation. Hence these lessons on human love will constitute in the end a brief treatise of ethics.

The basic task of ethical life consists in making one more sensitive each day to the call of values, above all to the value which plays the role of the ideal in life itself. Therefore, to achieve human maturity, the pressing need is to value each act in the light of the goal to which we feel called.

A contemporary moralist, Marcello Peretti, condenses the collective work "Problems of Juvenile Sex Education" in these words:

When the different acts are viewed in this way as a whole and with the meaning they should have, sufficient inner freedom is gained to interiorize the duty to love. This is underlined by Sören Kierkegaard in his wonderful book, Two Dialogues on First Love and Marriage:

This path to genuine love is the attitude of fidelity, which is possible only when one has a correct idea of what loving someone is and implies. Kierkegaard himself explains this forcefully:

When love is not profaned, but is given its full meaning and scope, the risk of reducing it to the mere practice of sexuality is avoided. Walter Trobisch explained this to a group of young Africans in the following manner:

1. At the end of this book I transcribe the blood curdling tale by ex-Auschwitz prisoner, Viktor Frankl, who was able to assess the liberating role played by the memory of a wife at an unbearable moment in life.

2. B. Haering, Etica de la manipulación (Barcelona: Herder, 1978), p. 71.

3. La educación sexual (Barcelona: Herder, 1975), p. 152.

4. Op. cit., pp. 238-242.

5. Op. cit., pp. 320-321.

6. Yo me casé contigo (Salamanca: Sígueme, 1973), pp. 108, 113.