THAT toughness comes from the supernatural grace of God. It is not just a human love, based only on natural forces, principles and motives which, given our wounded condition, are always hounded by our infranatural tendencies toward envy, anger, hatred, jealousy and the like.
Christian love does not suppress what is human and natural in us. It simply elevates and purifies it. And as such it can manage to have a universal scope that can include even loving our enemies.
It is this love that, as St. Paul said, would enable us to be all things to all men (cfr. 1 Cor 9,22), allowing us to adapt ourselves to all kinds of people, situations and conditions.
Indeed, St. Paul made this beautiful hymn of Christian love when he said: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” (1 Cor 13,4-7)
Christ, of course, is the very embodiment of this kind of love, and all the saints and the holy men and women through the ages have tried to live by this standard. We too are asked to have this kind of love, since Christ clearly told us to love one another as he himself has loved us. (cfr. Jn 13,34)
We need to be strong and tough, first of all, because our life will always involve, if not, require nothing less than continuing effort and struggle. Christ himself said it clearly: “From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and men of violence take it by force.” (Mt 11,12)
This is because there are goals and challenges to reach. And they are not merely natural, social or human goals. They are spiritual and supernatural that obviously need both grace and nothing less than our all-out effort.
Besides, given our wounded human condition, there obviously are problems and difficulties to face, temptations and consequences of our sins, mistakes and failures. There will always be issues that we need to resolve.
This is not to mention that each one of us has his own personal weaknesses to tackle. Everyone is prone to laziness and complacency, to narrow-mindedness and shortsightedness, if not blindness to spiritual and supernatural realities, all of which can lead to complications in our life.
We have to deal with the concupiscence of the eyes and the flesh, the pride of life, our tendency to be vain and self-centered, and to be dominated by the urges of lust and sensuality, greed and avarice, gluttony, and the many other disordinate passions we have.
We have to know the peculiarities of our emotional and psychological make-up, so we can be prepared to deal with the ups and downs of our life, twists and turns of life’s drama that can lead us to wild mood swings and to more serious conditions like falling into bipolar and similar mental and emotional illnesses.
This is not to mention that we have to learn how to cope with the consequences of the other extreme of committing mistakes and sins, suffering defeat, being a failure that can plunge us to depression, self-pity and despair. Or the sweet poison of success that can spoil us.
Let’s never forget that we also have to deal with spiritual and supernatural enemies of our soul. We are actually ranged against powerful spiritual enemies. We really need the toughness of Christian love to live our life properly.
