Apostles for Today
December - 2024
Sr. Monika Jagiello SAC
How To Rekindle Love For and In Others.
Love is a typical subject at any time. Every generation thinks about it and tries to define, describe, and express it. Every human being desires and seeks it. A great deal has been written about love. People are still looking for it, asking about it, and dreaming about it.
Nowadays, there seems to be a crisis in the subject of love. In Poland, for example, more than 81 thousand divorces were recorded in 2023. In Europe, this number, like in Poland, is still growing. The increase in suicides, the pandemic, and the associated isolation and sense of anxiety have also wreaked havoc on interpersonal relationships.
St Vincent Pallotti repeatedly drew attention to and reminded us of God's love for man. He sought and appealed for man's response - to God's love. Based on his life and mission, Fr. Vincent also knew that love is realized in relationships. There is no other way, it is impossible to love without contact, without dialogue, without collaboration, without proximity and presence. Pallotti initiated the cooperation between priests and laity in the Church. He bore witness that a reciprocal relationship can only be kindled in contact with one another; together, one with the other. He knew love could also be kindled through common works, meetings, and initiatives. They are often born out of curiosity - who the other person is. I am writing this article at the request of the General Secretariat of the UAC. I feel invited to join the circle of Pallotti's collaborators and contribute my knowledge and experience on the subject. This relates to my work and interest in creating reciprocal relationships, dialogue, and communal works. Daily I work - as a psychologist - with families in crisis. I founded and run the KORALE Foundation for the Support of Families. The Foundation cooperates with many communities, mainly with the Family Juvenile Courts, and Social Welfare Centers. We work with a team of 10 professionals. I have been learning to interact with people for 15 years.
When I think of the Union of Catholic Apostolate, I have good memories of working together to help Ukraine or at the Pallottine Institute in Konstancin-Jeziorna (near Warsaw) and being a member of the NCC UAC in Poland. When I recall these activities, I have a sense of closeness to the Good and an appreciation of diversity in being with others. I also have experience with failures in cooperation, an invaluable understanding of the hardship of being with others, and a school of acceptance of one's and others' limitations.
In this article, I also want to share knowledge about love. Yes, knowledge! It turns out that psychologists, in their passion for studying psychological phenomena and human relationships, have developed a MODEL FOR LOVE ??. For the ordinary person, love is something in the heart, something between people; it is an interest, a desire to be with another and to create something together. Although I am opposed to the psychological language, which has done more harm than good, let me draw on scientific research and discuss the MODEL FOR LOVE developed by Robert Sternberg. He argues that love has three components: Intimacy, Passion, and Commitment. In the graphs describing the longevity of the components, passion ‘peaks’, it rises the highest but lasts the shortest over time. Commitment, on the other hand, persists the longest over time of all the love components mentioned. This seems to speak quite well of us humans - commitment in interpersonal relationships lasts the longest and falls the slowest in the time curve. Research also confirms that relationships on average last around 14/15 years. Sternberg also distinguishes the following patterns:
- Blind love = passion + nothing.
- liking each other = intimacy + nothing.
- empty love = commitment + nothing
- romantic love = intimacy + passion
- friendly love = intimacy + commitment
- fatal love = passion + commitment
- complete love = passion + intimacy + commitment.
We may not fully agree with these patterns or wonder how they relate to Union. It is important to remember that we can make friends in our communities. We can evoke in each other - a love of friendship, based on closeness, respect, reciprocity, and mutual sharing of experiences, dreams, desires, and thoughts. This would be Intimacy in friendship. Experience + commitment could be understood, in the context of community, as nurturing the relationship`s permanence and awareness, making an effort for its duration, and committing to a common goal and uniting for a specific mission. In my work, I often deal with training, therapy, or interpersonal training groups. I observe that in groups, where people share their emotions, experiences, and thoughts, they develop a special relationship. They want to be with each other, they are curious about each other, they like to talk, ask questions, want to spend breaks together, exchange contacts, and meet up somewhere outside the group. It seems that the deeper the level of openness, the greater the bond between people.
The experience of being in the online UAC group was amazing for me. We formed it to bring aid to the victims of the war in Ukraine, which started at that time. We organized food collections for the usual people and soldiers, sleeping bags, and underwear. There were about 6, from different parts of our country. We communicated mainly by messenger, and yet I felt a bond between us. Not only did we exchange information about how much money we had, what we could buy, where to send the necessary things and articles, and who would take care of them, but we also shared our emotions from time to time (e.g. anger about the ongoing war, joy that we are not powerless in the face of the ongoing drama of our neighbors, that something is working and help is reaching those in need; there were also jokes that we made together.
And even though we have been out of contact for a few months, I still bond with these people. A kind of affection and bond has formed between us. So, taking into account what I have written from my piece of knowledge and experience, let me venture to conclude that to rekindle mutual love in people, you need three elements:
- Intimacy between people - i.e. creating conditions for mutual openness, sharing each other's emotions, feelings, thoughts, and experiences with a concern for mutual respect. This is certainly an important skill. It is necessary for a group leader who can create a good atmosphere of openness between people.
- Commitment - i.e. agreement and willingness to be together. Awareness that some work has to be done for the benefit of the relationship, effort, a common bond, and contact has to be made.
- Not being afraid of oneself in relationships with others. If the love of neighbour is the foundation of Christian life, as Pallotti claimed, then it can only be realized in mutual relationships. Fear of contact with others requires intervention and help.
A good community can be a place for healing the wounds of past experiences and the suffering of harm inflicted on a person in a relationship. We are all programmed for love. Every human being desires and seeks it. As human beings, individually and communally, we carry within us the proof that... ‘these three FAITH, HOPE and LOVE last. And of these, LOVE is the greatest".
Izabella Owczaruk
Piazza San Vincenzo Pallotti, 204 00186 Roma, ITALIA
Tel: (+39) 06.6876827 E-mail: uacgensec@gmail.com
