I think we people read this excellent comment, and the creative juices ran dry....This is superb and thanks so much to the person who sent this in. God bless you on this special day of Love.
What is “Love”? In modern times it has come to mean that emotional feeling or attachment that exists between people. As we all know, often through hard experience, this emotion can fade in time and will often not survive strong turbulence or unbalance. This love does not seem to be what we may call “True Love” nor is it really what has been understood as “True Love” from the 1st century until the Protestant Schism, and even then it did not take real root until the 19th and 20th century’s. So how do we discover what “True Love” is? We must look at our greatest model, Our Lord and Our Lady, in this case in the context of the Holy Family.
Our Lady was deeply in Love, a Love beyond any mere mortal love, hers was a divine Love, perfect as it was completely for God, because of God and was fully reciprocated by God. This Love did not give into fear, when the Angel Gabriel came in the annunciation what was it that made Our Lady agree despite the risks that an unwed mother would face? It was not the fact that she would be able to live comfortably, not some yearning for sexual fulfilment she hoped these divine espousals would bring. Not even the desire for power or prestige or for Her own good, no it was because she was willing to sacrifice anything for the Beloved and she knew he would sacrifice everything for Her. She saw in that moment the enormity of what God was proposing an incarnation in the flesh the most perfect union, indeed God himself becoming Man, enclosing himself deep within her in a way never before conceived.
Joseph too was a party to this Love for he shared in this Love of God. He too was willing to trust completely in God and he understood that Love of God can be expressed in Love for The Woman so in Chaste Continent Love he took the Blessed Virgin to himself and his Love for Her and for God were one. He was not afraid to work himself to the bone for Her, as he knew that everything he gave to her would be perfectly reciprocated not just by her but by God Himself.
So I will answer what is Love? Love is the total self giving of yourself to another either to god or Man, knowing that this total self giving is the will of God and thus the Love between Men is the Love of God. Thus we can say that Total self-Giving with humble trust in God is True-Love.