[00:00:00 –> 00:00:01] “Can I love someone that [00:00:01 –> 00:00:05] (Music) [00:00:05 –> 00:00:10] someone that really annoys me? [00:00:10 –> 00:00:17] love someone who really frustrates me? Can I love someone that I just don’t vibe with them at all? [00:00:17 –> 00:00:22] there’s an answer that Jesus gives, that the Church gives, [00:00:22 –> 00:00:28] The answer is, yes. You can love someone that you cannot stand. [00:00:28 –> 00:00:32] Jesus commands us in the Gospel to love one another. [00:00:32 –> 00:00:36] He actually commands it. He doesn’t say, [00:00:36 –> 00:00:38] “Love those that make you feel good.” [00:00:38 –> 00:00:45] Jesus commands us to do this because love isn’t merely what we feel. Love is what we choose. [00:00:45 –> 00:00:49] That’s where we get into what is called the will. [00:00:49 –> 00:00:54] So, we’re going to go deep and go into the philosophy and theology of what is called the will. The will [00:00:54 –> 00:01:05] So, in Christian anthropology, in understanding what it means to be a human being through the lens of being Christian, through the lens of Christianity and through the lens of Jesus, [00:01:05 –> 00:01:07] through God, we are given [00:01:07 –> 00:01:12] We are given intellect. We’re given emotions, and we’re given a will. [00:01:12 –> 00:01:16] So, we’re just going to dive into the will 101. [00:01:16 –> 00:01:25] I choose, but when it comes to the intellect, our emotions, and the will, they’re all different. [00:01:25 –> 00:01:31] The intellect, the intellect that God gave me helps me to recognize what is good and true. [00:01:31 –> 00:01:32] the emotions, [00:01:32 –> 00:01:38] help me to feel what is good or bad or uncomfortable. [00:01:38 –> 00:01:40] something that feels funny or weird. [00:01:40 –> 00:01:46] But it’s the will that allows me to choose good or to choose evil. [00:01:46 –> 00:01:51] easy example, you are in a deep sleep, a deep slumber and your alarm goes off. [00:01:51 –> 00:01:54] Your alarm goes off, it’s really loud and [00:01:54 –> 00:01:55] three things happen. [00:01:55 –> 00:02:01] Your intellect says, “It’s 7 a.m. I’m late for work. I really should get up. [00:02:01 –> 00:02:03] emotions, your feelings might say, [00:02:03 –> 00:02:14] I feel like a bump on a log. I want to stay here all day. Just five more minutes. I’m so comfy right now. I do not feel like getting up.” [00:02:14 –> 00:02:31] Chooses to get up and get started with the day. Your will is the drive. Your will is the thing that’s choosing to get [00:02:31 –> 00:02:33] Now, apply that to love, [00:02:33 –> 00:02:37] especially when it comes to loving someone that you cannot stand. [00:02:37 –> 00:02:42] So, you’re talking to someone that you’re not vibing with, you do not like, you cannot stand. [00:02:42 –> 00:02:44] And your intellect informs you, [00:02:44 –> 00:02:46] “This person irks me. [00:02:46 –> 00:02:50] The data suggests that this person has been rude to me in the past.” [00:02:50 –> 00:02:53] The data suggests this person is going to be rude to me again.” [00:02:53 –> 00:02:57] The data suggests, “I don’t like the sound of this person’s voice.” Whatever. [00:02:57 –> 00:02:59] What do your emotions say? [00:02:59 –> 00:03:07] “I do not feel safe around this person.” Or, “I do not feel like being nice to them. I do not feel like being around them.” [00:03:07 –> 00:03:09] then it’s your will [00:03:09 –> 00:03:10] that chooses [00:03:10 –> 00:03:11] to be kind to them. [00:03:11 –> 00:03:12] Your will [00:03:12 –> 00:03:14] chooses to love them. [00:03:14 –> 00:03:17] Or, your will chooses to be really short with them. [00:03:17 –> 00:03:18] Your will [00:03:18 –> 00:03:19] is the drive [00:03:19 –> 00:03:26] to either be rude or to be kind, to love or to be annoying. [00:03:26 –> 00:03:33] All three are good. Your emotions are good. Your intellect is good. Your will is good. [00:03:33 –> 00:03:37] But it’s only in the will that we actually choose. [00:03:37 –> 00:03:50] St. Thomas Aquinas has the very famous definition of love. It’s to will the good of another. To actually move and choosing to love what is good for the other. [00:03:50 –> 00:03:57] This is exactly why the church in her wisdom says, “Yeah, you can love and you can choose to love someone that you cannot stand.” [00:03:57 –> 00:04:04] feel annoyed and feel irked and feel like not loving. [00:04:04 –> 00:04:07] Vocation in marriage is an awesome example of this. [00:04:07 –> 00:04:29] If anyone has been married more than, I don’t know, two weeks, you know that you have to choose to love the other person. It is not just the feelings. It is not just the butterflies. It is not just the emotions. It’s actually the will. For the rest of my life, I am going to choose my beloved. [00:04:29 –> 00:04:33] Same thing with the priesthood. Same thing with the vocation that I’ve chosen. [00:04:33 –> 00:04:41] Every day, as a priest, I choose celibacy. I choose exclusively God. [00:04:41 –> 00:04:44] If love was not a choice, if love was just a feeling and emotion, [00:04:44 –> 00:04:51] feelings, my emotions, my attractions would have brought me to a way different place. [00:04:51 –> 00:04:56] the will is everything when it comes to vocation, when it comes to loving. [00:04:56 –> 00:05:12] There’s the danger, though, of going the completely different direction and not being in tune with our emotions and with our feelings. Your feelings are good and there is an insight into something good and true and beautiful or something bad and evil and not from God. [00:05:12 –> 00:05:24] Pope Benedict XVI said, “Feelings very much matter in the human person. They are so important, but they do not constitute the entirety of love.” [00:05:24 –> 00:05:33] Jesus makes it very, very clear and the saints really understood this, that you cannot control sometimes how you feel. [00:05:33 –> 00:05:39] But you are actually responsible for what you choose to do with what you feel. [00:05:39 –> 00:05:43] one of my students at the Newman Center just recently shared that one of the things that they struggle with is… [00:05:43 –> 00:05:49] the third, the fourth, the fifth glance at pretty girls. [00:05:49 –> 00:05:57] and so one of the things that they’re trying to do is strengthen the will not to objectify, not to look a second, third, fourth, fifth time… [00:05:57 –> 00:05:59] but to be able to recognize beauty, [00:05:59 –> 00:06:09] and then choose to move on. Choose to thank God for beauty. Choose to thank God for that human person. Whatever it is. [00:06:10 –> 00:06:11] It’s the will… [00:06:11 –> 00:06:16] feelings, attractions. Sometimes we just cannot control them. [00:06:16 –> 00:06:21] but it is in the will that we then choose to do with what we feel. [00:06:21 –> 00:06:25] So all of this being said, this is the will 101. [00:06:25 –> 00:06:32] Will is strengthened through grace, through time with Jesus, and through growing in virtue. [00:06:32 –> 00:06:36] So my invitation is… think about someone that is difficult to love. [00:06:36 –> 00:06:45] Whatever you’re feeling, you can choose to love in that moment. You can choose to love that person. But that’s done through spending time with Jesus, [00:06:45 –> 00:06:50] by practice, by virtue, by holy habits, where Jesus [00:06:50 –> 00:06:54] then through His grace strengthens our will. [00:06:54 –> 00:07:00] Love, not a feeling, it’s a choice. Whoever you can stand, guess what? You can love them. [00:07:00 –> 00:07:04] Love you, praying for you. This is Spirit Juice. Peace.