Pope Francis’ chapter on love (chapter 4) treats love as a virtue to be formed. Name three practices that a person might take up to develop this virtue.
Pope Francis describes love as a virtue that must be formed. This means that love is not an automatic thing that just happens. You have to be willing to work at it and sometimes make sacrifices to help love between a couple or a family or anyone grow. This could be seen as a reason for an increasing divorce rate. People expect love to be easy or that it will just happen, but it does not. Self sacrifice is not a common thing in a fallen world such as our world. It is something that has to be learned and practiced if people want it to be part of their life. According to Pope Francis, “Love is experienced and nurtured in the daily life of couples and their children.” One thing that a person can practice to develop the virtue of love is patience. Patience is being slow to anger and not acting impulsively. This does not mean that you should allow people to take advantage of you. Patience allows you to react in a more acceptable manner. Pope Francis says, “Patience takes root when I recognize that other people also have a right to live in this world.” Patience is understanding that you are not the center of the universe and that people are not here just to make you happy. A second practice to help develop virtue is to be generous. This means that you have to love others more than yourself. You have to want to put others before yourself. Being generous is according to Francis, “Expecting nothing in return.” You cannot help someone if you expect a reward and consider yourself generous. You have to do things for people just because. A third practice that a person can take up to help develop the virtue of love is forgiveness. Forgiveness is not easy; it requires sacrifice. If you never forgive then relationships will not be possible and you will always be upset. According to Pope Francis, “We need to learn to forgive ourselves, in order to have this same attitude towards others.” He says that this is only possible through having been forgiven by God. These practices can all be found in God. When people love, they try to love as god loves. To grow the virtue of love, people should try to be like God wherever they can in their lives.