'Oh, how I quail at using that word! It's been so sentimentalized in contemporary culture that almost all its resonances have been smothered in a drift of red hearts and teddy bears: I LOVE NY, I LOVE MY VOLVO, JESUS LOVES YOU. It's a transitive verb whose object is always pleasing; the instant the object ceases to delight we switch the verb to "like" or "can live without" or "downright detest." But the great commandment permits no lexical shift, without regard to your pleasure: (1) God; (2) everybody else, yourself included. If you love God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind and also love your neighbour as yourself, you will naturally carry out all the other commandments as well. Of course, this is a harder task than any they set. I've had far less trouble refraining from adultery, in the years since I've discovered I had the power to choose fidelity, than I've had loving Ronald Regan, for instance, in fact, I've never quite accomplished the latter.'
Nancy Mairs, Ordinary Time, p.138.
