Living the Theological Virtues and Embracing Your School of Love

God calls each of us to our vocation to help us grow in the theological virtues. We are called within our specific vocation to grow in our general vocation. Pope John Paul II called the family the “school of love.” He referred mainly to the fact that children learn what it means to love from their parents. However, any parent who is honest with himself or herself acknowledges that having children is also a school of love for parents.

Learning to love each other as a married couple in an exclusive, committed, life-long, fruitful relationship is a challenge in itself. When my wife and I were dating, I thought that I was a pretty selfless guy. I honestly thought that I’d have an advantage in the whole marriage thing because I had learned to be selfless by growing up with a handicapped brother and because of how much I had grown in my faith. The theological virtues were already growing quite strongly in me, and I was discovering the Gifts of the Holy Spirit and the charisms that God stirred within me at my Confirmation. I thought I was good.

It didn’t take long into the marriage for me to realize that I still had a long way to go before I was able to love my wife completely. But I grew. And again I got to the point when I thought I had mastered selfless love. Then we had children.

When we adopted our first child we knew that we didn’t know much about parenting. Changing diapers, fixing bottles, burping and dressing our daughter were all new experiences for us. But the real lessons of parenting began – as they do for every parent – with the late-night feedings and the stinky diaper changes. I had some more growing to do. But I did my part. I took turns with my wife doing all of that. I thought we were handling parenting really well thanks to our selfless love. Then we adopted our son.

We quickly realized that our daughter was the easy child. When we got our son home, we discovered the next level of selfless love. He cried every hour all night long for the first year of his life. He exhausted us. He demanded that we pour ourselves out in ways that we never imagined. And I have to confess, we didn’t do so well. My wife and I both really struggled – lost patience, gained self-pity, and felt that we were failures. But God was teaching us to love through this trial.

Learning to love children – not just to enjoy them when they’re being cute, but to truly love them day in and day out – is another lesson in selfless love.

The same is true of the priesthood. Priests are called to love their flock as a father loves his children. Too many people assume that priests have a special corner on holiness. The truth is that priests have to learn to love just like the rest of us. Their trials are different that the trials of married couples, but they exist. I am friends with too many priests to fall into the illusion that they all master their call to pour themselves out for the Church. Many of them struggle. Some of them become lazy and petty. But most of them realize that their vocation is a school of love as surely as marriage and family life is.

Again, the same is true of the religious life. Those who take vows to live in community and to focus their lives on learning to love God and to dedicate their lives to prayer – they also need to learn how to love. For a great illustration of this, read the writings of Saint Therese of Lisieux. Saint Therese struggled to love certain members of her community and had to grow in this grace just like the rest of us.

So what is your school of love? More importantly, how well are you embracing it? Are you striving for selfless love? Are you finding the opportunities within your vocation to grow in the theological virtues? To know God more intimately? To trust him more completely? To love him more selflessly?