Love and Responsibility

[rainier]

"We love the person complete with all his or her virtues and faults, and up to a point, independently of those virtues and in spite of those faults. The strength of such a love emerges most clearly when the beloved person stumbles, when his or her weaknesses or even sins come into the open. One who truly loves does not then withdraw his love, but loves all the more, loves in full consciousness of the other's shortcomings and faults, and without in the least approving of them."

Karol Wojtyla (Pope John Paul II), Love and Responsibility (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1993), 135.