Human love is dynamic.
It goes through different seasons and expresses itself in always new ways:
“The process occurs in various stages that call for generosity” (AL 220);
“A love that fails to grow is at risk” (AL 134) and it’s important to realize “that married life is a process of growth, in which each spouse is God’s means of helping the other to mature….each marriage is a kind of ‘salvation history’,”
which from fragile beginnings – thanks to God’s gift and creative and generous response on our part – grows over time into something precious and enduring.
Might we say that the greatest mission of two people in love is to help one another become, respectively, more a man and more a woman? …
love makes each wait for the other with the patience of a craftsman, a patience which comes from God” (AL 221).
The definitive aspect that characterizes conjugal love requires being cultivated, trusting above all in the grace of the Holy Spirit: “Promising love forever is possible when we perceive a plan bigger than our own ideas and undertakings, a plan which sustains us and enables us to surrender our future entirely to the one we love” (AL 124);
“…growth can only occur if we respond to God’s grace through constant acts of love, acts of kindness that become ever more frequent, intense, generous, tender and cheerful…” (AL 124).
(Comment by Jesus Moran at the meeting of the New Family Secretariats held in Castel Gandolfo from 3 to 6 November 2016)