Salesian Literature

Chapter 8:  The attraction that awakens love

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We attribute seeing to the eye, hearing to the ear, speaking to the tongue, reasoning to the mind, remembering to the memory, and loving to the will.  Yet we are well aware that, properly speaking, it is the whole man who performs all these varied activities through his different spiritual faculties and bodily organs.  It is the whole man too, through his emotive faculty called the will, who seeks and enjoys good: he has that deep attraction towards it, which is the source, the origin of love.

 

The attraction which gives rise to love is not always due to likeness, but o the complementary relationship existing between lover and beloved.  No likeness awakens a sick man’s response to his doctor; it is the relationship between one man’s need and another man’s skill – one is in need of help which the other can give.  In the same way, doctors carefully treat sick men, masters give special attention to their pupils, because in this way they practise their skill.

 

Discords in music produce harmony, as dissimilar voices blend to form a balanced tone; a beautiful jewelled ornament, or a floral pattern, result form the blending of different gems of blooms.  So love is not always due to likeness or sympathy; it is also a question of complementary harmonious qualities – the union between different things for their mutual perfection or betterment.  Of course, if the two – likeness and complementary qualities – go together, love is undoubtedly awakened more easily, more strongly.

 

The first cause of love, then, is the attraction between lover and beloved – an attraction which links together people or things for the purpose of helping or perfecting each other; each, through union with the other, is enabled to achieve completion or improvement.  This will become easier to understand, as my book develops.

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