Love means never having to say you’re sorry?

What does it mean when one says, “love means never having to say you’re sorry?”

This is a famous quote from “Love Story” but is the idea new?

First, what kind of love are we talking about?

As was in the last article, love is a very loaded word in the English language. It means so many different things from erotic love to love of objects (mercenary love) like pizza and money. Finally, there is charitable or agape love like the love one has when giving from the heart or making sincere sacrifices.

What kind of love would not require one to say, “I’m sorry” before forgiving?

My bet is that the love is agape love.

Let’s take a closer look at the famous prayer, “The Our Father.” Jesus knew what he was saying but I sometimes wonder about the words and translations. Check out the Wikipedia site on the Our Father for lots of wonderful descriptions of all the translations over the millenniums.

The two sentences I want to focus on are the ones about forgiveness.

Here are a few translations:

Most common English today:

forgive us our trespasses,

as we forgive those who trespass against us,

some translations change the word trespasses into sins or debts.

Latin:

et dimitte nobis debita nostra,

Sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris;

Debita and debitoribus are the only Latin words I have ever seen and they translate to debt or debts.

Spanish:           

            Perdonanos nuestras deudas,

            Como nosotros perdonamos a nuestro deudores

Some translations use the words “culpas” and others “ofensas.”

If someone has a debt, one could say they can have trespassed on “property.”

If someone trespasses, one could say they at least owe an apology.

Consider the debt we have to God for all he has given us! He has given us life, land, love, the universe, bullheads, basically everything. How can we ever repay that debt?

When we consider the case of lending someone $10 and then say: “Keep it.” This is forgiving a debt but more importantly, it is charity. Isn’t this in a sense following through with the statement that “love means never having to say you are sorry?” Isn’t forgiving a debt or trespass without a prompting executing on agape love?

Jesus’ teaching on love is one of the best we have. He said that we need to love God above all else and we need to love our neighbors, too, even and especially the ones we have trouble with. As He put it, even the major league sinners love people who love them. We all need to take a step further and love those who don’t or won’t love us back. In other words, everyone can forgive one who asks to be forgiven, but we need to go further and love those who won’t ask for forgiveness. Isn’t the best way to love these unrepentant neighbors to forgive them?

The American/secular way is to have a “fault assessment phase.” Whenever something goes wrong or someone is wronged, the first thing is to find out “whose fault is it?” Who did the trespassing? Who owes the debt? Next, we need to make the perpetrator pay! This teaching is in complete opposition to the teaching of love. Yes, we need to keep a safe society and defend our loved ones, but where is the love that Jesus talked about? Where is forgiveness?

When Jesus said on the cross, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do?” Who was He forgiving? Are we naïve enough to say he was directing that at the soldiers or Jews? He was directing that forgiveness at you and I for we all sinned and thereby put him on the cross. He died on the cross before anyone of us said, “I’m sorry.” This is the agape love we need to follow.

What is Love?

Why are we here? I would contend that we are here to love.
But, what exactly is love?

Each of us yearns to love and be loved, but what exactly is this thing we all call love? I find the English language a bit lacking here as other languages have many different words for love. This is true in the Greek and Hebrew texts of the Bible (many words for love).

When one thinks of love, an initial inclination may be to think of a couple who is lost in passion for each other and blind to reality. Or, one may think of a parent doing their teenager's laundry after being called an idiot. Yes, these are both examples of love.

There are many examples of "true love" out there and we don't often reflect on them.
Let us consider a few.

I think one of the biggest examples of love was when the firefighters, police officers, and others went into the World Trade Center and gave their lives in the hope of saving those still in the buildings. It is amazing how much "true love" flows in the midst of the biggest evils.

Other examples are those soldiers who paid the ultimate price. Those true heroes who jumped on grenades or took bullets for the "team" and really for all of us. These people had "true love.".

Consider the couple who had that initial passionate love and then had it apparently weaken. They have troubles but stay together and survive for 50-60 years. In their old age, they bear the wounds of many struggles and physical ailments. They have a deep concern for each other that is hard to put into words. This is also true love. Some of these couples wind up ministering to each other through cancer and other illnesses, right up to death.

Then, we have simpler and not so profound examples of true love that we see everyday.
The people raising money to help so many causes from MS through Cancer Cures and more.

When we watch football and other sports, we occasionally see John 3:16. It is a beautiful verse but I love 1 John 4:16 even more and here it is in one translation:

We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us. God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him.

Christians are all about love. The Catholic Church is all about this love and the newest leader, Benedict XVI, put his focus on love with his first major writing, "God is love." In this book, he addresses different kinds of love including agape and eros and ties them together.

More later. What examples of love have you had in your life?

Jim's blog

Here goes. My blog has started.

I'm going to put stuff out here and encourage people to read/help the thread.

The direction is going to be discussion of "The Truth."

What exactly are we here for and where are we going?
Why do we do what we do?

Well, I'm studying and thinking a lot about this lately so I thought folks could help me figure this all out.