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What are our difficulties with loving and allowing ourselves to be loved?

The more we love, the more we feel loved. But if you resist the love of others, you’ll be condemning yourself to a profound state of solitude, because human beings cannot live without love. 

I think that we are all aware that we travel, it is in order to work on ourselves, of course, but also to be able to bring to others this exchange of love that we have ourselves received. It’s this exchange that’s so wonderful, and it’s what God asks of us - « Give without counting, and you will receive a hundredfold. » People always imagine that receiving a hundredfold means receiving in the material world, but God’s gifts are not always material. They do exist, but differently, they’re there to help us progress, to make us understand that we are loved, and also to make us understand that we are always able to love even more. Since the seminar is so close, I’d like to take this opportunity to congratulate all our young people - and also the not so young, who demonstrate exemplary fidelity in looking after their youngsters. I’m sure you understand that age doesn’t exist - whether you’re 18, 30 or 35, it matters little. Our soul is always that of a 20 year-old; there is no age, and especially, there’s no age for loving, and there’s no age for allowing ourselves to be loved.

So I’d like to make a very important point about love in couples, because in today’s world, we notice crucial, fundamental difficulties in the acceptance of the partner’s faults. Quite simply, it’s because we believe we are perfect and that the other person is imperfect - if something is not right for us, we systematically believe it’s the other person’s fault, whereas we should look at ourselves and try to understand that we all have to try and improve our own way of living. We should always be working on ourselves in order to better understand and help others, particularly in our couples.

I could also dedicate a comment to us as women – you can never express too much tenderness. There’s an old French proverb which says - « You can’t catch flies with vinegar! » Tenderness is a form of bait! This means that you all possess tenderness, but you are not the only ones. You men also have this tenderness within you, and you need to offer it to the women you claim to love. If there’s no sharing of these qualities, the couple can’t survive, because the world we live in is sometimes racked by storms. We have to make it through these storms together, and that’s why we need to be able to feel the osmosis between us all. And in fact, as you know, the more we love, the more we feel loved. But if you resist the love of others, you’re condemning yourself to a profound state of solitude, because human beings cannot live without love. You all have the capacity for love, and I believe that it’s the subject of the theme you’ve read today - we have to love one another, but we must also accept love. That’s the very basic principle which consolidates all forms of love.