"Vamos Usar a Palavra Amor como Judeus Usaram a Palavra Deus, Pois Deus é Amor"

Seguramente, a passagem mais conhecida das epístolas de São Paulo é Coríntios 13, que inclusive fez parte de uma música do grupo de rock Legião Urbana, chamada Monte Castelo.

Muitas vezes essa passagem é lida em velórios. Talvez como uma forma de pedir perdão a Deus e pedir misericórdia.

Em Coríntios 13, São Paulo diz: "Ainda que eu falasse as línguas dos homens e dos anjos, se não tivesse amor, seria como o bronze que soa, ou como címbalo que retine. Mesmo que eu tivesse o dom da profecia, e conhecesse todos os mistérios e toda a ciência; mesmo que tivesse toda a fé, a ponto de transportar montanhas, se não tiver amos, não sou nada..."

Mas muitos que leem essa passagem esquecem que São Paulo na mesma epístola Coríntios, no vesículo 5 também disse que (5,11): Não deveis associar-vos com alguém que traz o nome de irmão, e no entanto é imoral, avarento, idólatra, caluniador, beberrão ou ladrão. Com pessoas assim, não deveis nem sequer sentar-vos à mesa.

Assim, os cristãos não devem ter contato, nem sentar-se à mesa com cristãos imorais, avarentos, idólatras, caluniadores, beberrões e ladrões.

Aí, alguém pergunta, mas onde está o amor? São Paulo responderia que não sentar-se à mesa com esse tipo de gente é uma ação amorosa, pois ensina o que é certo tanto aos cristãos como àqueles que pecam.

Assim, o amor tem de vir junto com a verdade.

Hoje em dia não há palavra mais desgastada que a palavra amor. Hoje, o amor significa "tô afim", significa apenas desejo momentâneo.

Os membros do Estado Islâmico dizem que "amam" matar os infiéis, os drogados "amam" as drogas, os defensores do casamento gay dizem que os gays podem se casar porque "se amam". Os defensores da poligamia também querem se casar porque se amam. Daqui a pouco os defensores do incesto e da pedofilia dirão o mesmo.

Pensando nisso tudo, Bo Bonner deseja que a palavra "amor" deveria sofrer uma moratória, fosse apenas usada com o respeito que os judeus usam a palavra Deus (no tetragrammaton YWHW, imagem acima). Eles têm medo de falar a palavra Deus, receio de usar a palavra em vão. Como Bonner, o mundo hoje "ama" os pecados. Há muitas outras frases fantásticas no texto.

É um texto realmente excleente, vale à pena ser lido. Abaixo vai parte do texto, leiam todo no site Catholic Beer Club clicando aqui.


A MORATORIUM ON THE WORD "LOVE": A MORE THAN HALF SERIOUS PROPOSAL

by Bo Bonner

Proposing a moratorium on a word as august, regal, and, well—important—as Love may seem strange, if not downright offensive. But it is precisely out of deference to love’s hallowed place in the English language that I propose, with tongue-ever-so-slightly-in-cheek, that we may have reached the point it should no longer be said aloud, or at least not how we are accustomed to saying it.

If I have not lost you already, let me begin with an observation that is bound to slough off another segment of readers here from the get-go: "love is love" makes no sense--it is a ludicrous statement. But why it is ludicrous is part and parcel to my proposition.
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To make the point theological: we love our sins. Otherwise, we wouldn't keep doing them. And this is what gets in the way of our love of God. (It would be quite a spiritual achievement if every evening we would come to terms with this fact: today, I have loved my sins more than God). Even loving people is not a zero sum game--how you love them and for what end (myself? them? an abstraction? God? etc.?) is of the essence when deciding whether your love for them is good or, indeed, wicked--and not just on your part, but for their well-being as well.

Because of this, because the-who-and-the-what-and-the-how of love are so important, no one—and I mean no one—is wrong to scrutinize love. Love is the unitive force that brings the best things in the world together, but it is also the force that tears many things apart. The worst people in the world and throughout history love their hatred, and that is why they can go to near mythical ends to spread human misery and pain, all because of love. Satan loves nothing but himself and his hatred (he also hates himself because of this), and that is what motivates him to drag as much of mankind down with him into the abyss as he can.

Even God's love is not all puppy dogs and rainbows and lollipops—the same fire of love that purifies in purgatory and makes the Saints refulgent in glory is also the punishment of hell fire. Although God's love is pure and admits of no defect, it is still a terrible and wonderful thing to behold.
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For this reason, I propose a moratorium on the word love, at least for a time. But I don’t mean that we simply give the word up, or act like we could do without it. For starters, we have a cacophony of synonyms for love (as we should—it only makes sense), and if what I said above is true, one cannot escape talking about love. I only want to make it more difficult to say, as it were. I want us to trip over needing to enunciate it. I want us to take our time whenever we would dare place the word on our tongue.

And so, I suggest we do something akin to what Jews do with the Tetragrammaton, the name of God in Hebrew. They will not pronounce His name aloud out of reverence, in fear that they will use His name vainly, and go to great lengths to assure they will not utter The Name. We should do likewise with love.

As Christians, we know from the Apostle John that “God is Love.” And yes language nerds, I know that in Greek there are many words for love, and eros and philos and agape and etc. all have different shades of meaning. But all the many words we have for love, it has been revealed to us that they have their primordial root in God. By using the word love with such glib ease, have we not used the name of God in vain?