Reviews for By love refined

The average rating for By love refined based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2018-03-29 00:00:00 Tom Hemingway I expected the title of this book was just a nice-sounding, generic phrase. How amazed I am to now understand it as the key to increasing depth of happiness in marriage. By Love Refined beautifully lays out how love really is the center of a good marriage--only, this is not love as the world expects. In short, clear, profound letters, Mrs. von Hildebrand gently expounds to the young bride "Julie" (and thus to us, her readers) how self-sacrificing love sees the beloved for his true self and thus dares all, endures all, gives all, and so also receives all. Her central image is the "Tabor Vision," a way of relating the intensity of early, "in love" love to the Transfiguration of Christ before his disciples on Mount Tabor. She asserts that the one who is in love sees the truest revelation of the beloved's self. That such "in love" feelings will fade is inevitable. What the lover must do is remember the vision and live according to it. When his habits annoy you, when he seems distant, when life is full of drudgery, remember that this is not reality. That ecstatic vision of love is the reality. Though it is often hidden, the secret to happiness in marriage is to bring it constantly to mind and to act in accord with it, rather than reacting to the mundane appearances of day-in-day-out life. This does not mean ignoring the reality of problems and trying to live in some imaginary dream world. Mrs. von Hildebrand speaks often of determining the proper "theme" for a given time. The theme might be relaxation or joy or frustration or any hundred other things. What is important is perceiving the theme (or perhaps helping craft it) and acting accordingly for that moment. There is a time to address concerns or irritations with one's husband, but not at moments when either or both of you are exhausted, distracted, or upset. What I liked most about this book, I think, is that it not only offered wise, Christian marriage advice, but that it gently teaches about the very nature of true love. So gentle is the teaching, in fact, that I cannot really point to any one thing that I had not already known and believed before I read the book. Yet, so profound is the teaching that I feel I have a completely new vision of love lived out in the Christian life. For those wise enough to have become disillusioned with the world's mantra that marriage is all about love, this book will help you turn the tables on the world. Yes, marriage is all about love. But, oh, poor selfish world, you do not understand at all what love is. Read this book and begin to turn love inside out: It is not about your joy but the joy of your beloved. Which, paradoxically, will bring you far more joy than you could ever have expected.

Review # 2 was written on 2018-11-14 00:00:00 Remco de Maaijer I feel a bit ambiguous about this epistolary volume. It's by Roman Catholic theologian and philosopher Alice Hildebrand. On the one hand, it contains good advice for the newly married woman. Much of what she says is both perceptive and daringly counter-cultural--she has the wisdom to urge self-sacrifice and self-control in an era deeply suspicious of anything that might trim the wings of one's individuality. In addition, I love her comment that "Although love is a gift, it must be learned." (A thought that applies to parenting as well as marriage!). Another interesting quote: "One widespread modern attitude aggravates our difficulties in marriage and in all our other relationships: lack of reverence. I don't only mean lack of reverence for God. I also mean lack of reverence for other persons and even for things: the failure to recognize the inner nobility and worth of persons and things which leads to the failure to treat them with the deep, tender respect that is due to them." She posits that the opposite of this necessary reverence is arrogance. On the other hand, I find her style off-putting. Her tone is so elevated it sometimes feels like a throwback to nineteenth-century romanticism. She says that in times of conflict, "The crucial thing at such times is to call to mind the glorious Tabor vision of [your husband] granted to you in your moment of falling in love. What you saw then, even though it might seem an illusion now, was the true [man]." That is, a wife is to believe, through force of will, that the wonderful man she saw during the time of courtship is a God-granted image of her husband, more "real" than the sins and imperfections of daily married life. In all honesty, I find this a terrible analogy. Perhaps it will resonate more strongly with readers who experienced the traditional head-over-heels kind of courtship. Me? I'm more emotionally cautious and intellectually driven. I feel far more in love with my husband now than during our engagement. More importantly, though, I think it urges women to cling to a superficial, romanticized picture of their husband's "inner man" instead of just love the real fellow, simul justus et peccator, warts and all. I find it far more helpful to be urged to love, forgive, and accept my sinful husband (whose weaknesses are real!) just as I have been loved, forgiven, and accepted by God. Again, not a bad read; and I might be more enthusiastic about it if I hadn't already read other books with similar sound advice.