This booklet is a profound and challenging reflection on human love. It starts with a section called Being Chosen in Love, which examines the fundamental need we all have to be loved - a need planted in us by our Creator, and met most fully by Jesus Christ, who chooses us. Fr Doe interweaves Scriptural understanding with his analysis, reminding us of God's choosing of the Jews, the Father's choosing of the Son, Our Lord's choosing of his disciples; and relating all that to our development as human beings.
The second section is Why Love can be so Difficult. Fr Doe goes straight to the root of the problem: Satan as the enemy of human nature, and the damage inflicted on us by Original Sin. He then focuses on Jesus as Healer, and the need for us to be powerless and vulnerable - which we fear - for the fullness of Our Lord's healing to reach our depths. He then proceeds to look at the link between Eros (erotic love) and Agape (self sacrificial love), and the way Our Lord enables the integration of our fractured natures.
This leads into the final section: True Love: a Radical Inner Conversion. Here Fr Doe explores how the conversion of the heart can free us to be able truly to love another; and how Jesus' love for us transforms and reintegrates us, healing our damaged sexuality and driving out the fear of rejection that is one of the fruits of the Fall. This enables us to recover true chastity of our heart, and reclaim the true meaning of our sexuality.
This is not an easy booklet to read, and not an easy progression of ideas to follow. The reading is made more difficult by poor editing (typos and long unpunctuated sentences at times) but the principle difficulty is in the richness of thought and its slightly abstract expression.
However it repays reading carefully and praying over, as it has a lot of profound insights to offer, and finally is a message of hope to all who wish to recover the glory of our sexual nature as given to us by our Creator.
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