Rome Newsroom, Jan 17, 2024 / 09:12 am
In a continuation of his catechetical series on vice and virtue, Pope Francis on Wednesday dedicated his general audience to highlighting the difference between love and lust, arguing that “in Christianity, there is no condemnation of the sexual instinct.”
Centering his reflection on the “human experience,” the pope drew upon the Song of Songs, also referred to as the Canticle of Canticles or the Song of Solomon, which he called a “wonderful poem of love between two lovers” that reveals falling in love “is one of the most astonishing realities of existence.”
The pope observed that in this process there is an altruistic factor in which “a person in love becomes generous, enjoys giving gifts, writes letters and poems. He stops thinking of himself to be completely focused on the other.”
“To love is to respect the other, to seek his or her happiness, to cultivate empathy for his or her feelings, to dispose oneself in the knowledge of a body, a psychology, and a soul that are not our own, and that must be contemplated for the beauty they bear,” the pope said to the faithful gathered in the Paul VI Audience Hall.
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