A Lesson in How to Love

You might have already seen it, but there is a picture (<--worth clicking on to see) of Pope Francis embracing a little boy with Cerebral Palsy that has quickly gone viral this week. It happened on Easter Sunday as Pope Francis was driving through the crowd in his Popemobile greeting people at the Vatican after celebrating Easter Mass. Since the picture was taken, countless news agencies and social media outlets have picked up the story, including CNN, FOX, and Huffington Post to name a few.

(You can see the event in the first few seconds of this video)

I personally read about the encounter in this post, where the boy's own father, Paul Gondreau, writes about the moment the Pope embraced his son Dominic. He details how it affected him and everyone around them, and is absolutely worth your time if you have a minute to read the entire post. This portion stuck out to me most:

Why is the whole world so moved by images of this embrace? A woman in the Square, moved to tears by the embrace, perhaps answered it best when she to my wife afterward, “You know, your son is here to show people how to love.” To show people how to love. This remark hit my wife as a gentle heaven-sent confirmation of what she has long suspected: that Dominic’s special vocation in the world is to move people to love, to show people how to love. We human beings are made to love, and we depend upon examples to show us how to do this.

Dominic's father talks about the responsibility of helping his son do even the smallest tasks because of his cerebral palsy. But even when it's tiring or tough to see Dominic suffer, he in return is learning the most valuable gift of all--the reason we're ultimately put on this earth--how to really love another in the most selfless way possible. 

The picture reminded me of my own special encounter with Pope John Paul II when I was just three years old. We were living in Vicenza, Italy, where my dad was stationed with the Army, and my grandparents were visiting for their 40th anniversary. They planned to renew their vows at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. I'm not sure how much time we spent in Rome altogether, but it was long enough to also attend an audience with the Pope. I remember it all vividly--people crowded into the pews, the partition blocking the aisle, how my mom sat me on that thin, uncomfortable partition so I could see better and how it dug into the back of my legs as I squirmed. I remember seeing a funny man in purple walking behind some grandpa wearing a white robe. People were reaching around us, pushing against us, but the man in white reached for me, held my cheeks in his hands and said "Ah, che bella bambina! Dammi un bacio!" [Oh what a beautiful little girl! Give me a little kiss!] as he kissed me on the forehead. I remember feeling embarrassed, but intrigued, because he had such a kind smile and a little gleam his eye...like a fun grandfather who any little kid would immediately want to play with. And I remember grown-ups looking at me with tears flowing from their eyes. I didn't understand then what I'm beginning to grasp now. What those around Dominic understood to be represented in an even more profound way. That an exchange of love--however small--with the helpless, the weak, the ones who can't give anything in return, somehow has the greatest return. It defies reason and conjures up inexplicable emotion. It makes us yearn for more. It makes us gravitate toward it and want to learn more about that kind of love.

Me with Pope John Paul II 

I think that's just what I needed to focus on this week. The concept of learning how to love. I saw the picture of Dominic and read his dad's words, which brought tears to my eyes, but the concept struck me on deeper level, too. It's not just the disabled who can teach us how we are supposed to love. It can be anyone. We usually see life from the self-centered vantage point of what we are to others. How often do we approach the day as our child's primary boss and caretaker, or our friends' helper and advice-giver, or our coworkers' rescuer and contributor to success? Isn't it a crazy concept to turn things around and realize how they might be benefiting us? To think, "In this moment, [Insert Name] is specifically teaching me how to love?" 

I've tried to make that a point today with those in my life. It's eye-opening how my own children are constantly giving me opportunities to learn to love better. When I don't want to change another stinky diaper, when I don't want to sit on the bathroom stool for another hour with a potty training youngster, and when I really don't want to read the same bedtime story the third time in a row, I can remember that these are opportunities to show them my unconditional love--to learn how to love unconditionally, even when the time I'm spending with them doesn't seem that glamorous or exciting to me. Changing a diaper is necessary, but also a chance to learn how to give of myself out of real love for them--without expectation or strings attached. 

In my current vocation as a wife at home, I can remember that doing the dishes and laundry again (and again and again and again) for my family not only helps me care for them properly; they, in turn are teaching me the beauty of service to another in addition to the necessity of providing for them. In my former job, when I encountered those I didn't particularly get along with, I'm now understanding that they might have been put in my life at that moment to help me learn how to love better and possibly approach things in a different way. Because often, those who seem most difficult to love or who suck the most energy out of us can be the biggest teachers we encounter in life. 

I guess what I'm really trying to drive home, and what really caught my attention when Pope Francis embraced Dominic, is the whole humility bit. I also sensed it when the media went crazy about Pope Francis washing the feet of a young Muslim woman at a juvenile detention center on Holy Thursday. To me these acts are lessons in themselves. It's rare see a figurehead who is so unpretentious with others--with no "look at me" vibe to be had--just driven by a desire freely serve another person out of love. Or the case of embracing Dominic's, a desire to receive the gift of being able to show love to another. If Pope Francis can remain humble with cameras in his face every instant, how much more might I be able to do in my own kitchen? I think the world can do a lot of good if we try to adopt that type of humility in our actions. If we tried to remember that each encounter is an opportunity to show love, if a candid photo snapped of each of us could reveal such unadulterated compassion shining from our face, peace would surely be within our grasp. 

I know you and I can't love perfectly or with perfect humility all the time because we're human. We're all a work in progress. I mean, I don't get to go around every day kissing sweet babies like the Pope and then happily handing them back to their parents. I am with my babies pretty much all day, every day. I quite naturally get stressed, and frustrated, and annoyed, especially in those situations that demand unconditional love and continual service. I know that to do my best at loving with humility I need to still take care of myself, too--take time to recharge or my fuse will only be about a millimeter long before I lose it. But in trying to do my best, Dominic and Pope Francis together have opened my eyes to the new ideal: one of spending those demanding moments with less of a chip on my shoulder, without fanfare, without looking around to see who I might impress, and without trying to calculate what might be in it for me. Because I now know what I'm getting out of it--on every occasion--without exception, is the gift of a teacher giving me a free lesson in how to really love.