Christopher West - Love Is Patient, But Im Not: Confessions of a Recovering Perfectionist

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Copyright 2017 Christopher West
Published by Beacon Publishing

All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles or reviews.

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture passages have been taken from the Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition. Copyright 1946, 1952, 1971 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture texts marked NAB in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, D.C. and are used by permission of the copyright owner. All rights reserved. No part of the New American Bible may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Quotes are taken from the English translation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church for the United States of America (indicated as CCC), 2nd edition. Copyright 1997 by United States Catholic ConferenceLibreria Editrice Vaticana.

Quoted material from Pope Francis is taken from The Joy of Love, published by Beacon Publishing, 2015.

Design by Madeline Harris
Interior by Ashley Wirfel

ISBN: 978-1-63582-006-5 (softcover)
ISBN: 978-1-929266-66-1 (e-book)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: West, Christopher, 1969- author.
Title: Love is patient, but Im not : confessions of a recovering perfectionist / Christopher West.
Description: North Palm Beach, Florida : Beacon Publishing, Inc., 2017.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017034043 | ISBN 9781635820065 (softcover) | ISBN 9781929266661 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Bible. Corinthians, 1st, XIII, 4-7Criticism, interpretation, etc. | LoveBiblical teaching. | LoveReligious aspectsCatholic Church.
Classification: LCC BS2675.52 .W47 2017 | DDC
241/.4dc23

Dynamic Catholic and Be Bold. Be Catholic. and The Best Version of Yourself are registered trademarks of The Dynamic Catholic Institute.

The Dynamic Catholic Institute
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Phone: 18599807900
Email:

First printing, September 2017

Printed in the United States of America

Other Books by
CHRISTOPHER WEST

Good News about Sex & Marriage:
Answers to Your Honest Questions about Catholic Teaching

Theology of the Body Explained:
A Commentary on John Paul IIs Man and Woman He Created Them

Theology of the Body for Beginners:
Rediscovering the Meaning of Life, Love, Sex, and Gender

The Love That Satisfies:
Reflections on Eros and Agape

Heavens Song:
Sexual Love as It Was Meant to Be

At the Heart of the Gospel:
Reclaiming the Body for the New Evangelization

Fill These Hearts:
God, Sex, and the Universal Longing

Pope Francis to Go:
Bite-Sized Morsels from The Joy of the Gospel

Theology of the Body at the Movies

I grew up believing that I was only lovable if I got my act together. I had to be a good boy to be worthy of Gods love, or anyone elses. Be perfect (read: be a saint) and then youll be loved. Such was the impression made on me by a falsely pious upbringing.

Having shared my story with audiences around the world, I know Im not the only recovering perfectionist out there. Its a sadly common but tragically misguided impression of what it means to be Catholic. There is so much wrong with this view, not the least of which is what it means to be a saint. Saints are not perfect people. They are people who know that they are perfectly loved in all their imperfections. They abide in that love and it fills them with the infectious joy of the gospel. Abide in my love, says Jesus, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full (John 15:9, 11).

The irresistible promise of joy, of satisfying our hearts hunger for loveisnt that what were all looking for? Isnt that why we do crazy things... like get married?

Wendy and I were all about that joy when we tied the knot. In fact, along with our wedding date, 11/18/95, wed had the jeweler inscribe a personal adaptation of Christs promise on the underside of our rings. Although scratched and worn, theyre still legible today: Mine reads your joy in us and hers reads our joy complete.

Like all young couples, Wendy and I had a rather naive understanding of what the joy of love entailed when we ventured into married life. Joy, Pope Francis explains, refers to an expansion of the heart and it needs to be cultivated. Paradoxically, that happens amid sorrow. Cultivating true joy involves accepting that marriage is an inevitable mixture of enjoyment and struggles, tensions and repose, pain and relief, satisfactions and longings, annoyances and pleasures, but always on the path of friendship, which inspires married couples to care for one another (The Joy of Love, 126). As countless couples can attest, its that care for one another over the long haul that slowly births the deep, abiding joy of love.

Having been disillusioned and deeply wounded by the secular cultures approach to love and sexuality, I spent my early twenties immersing myself in Catholic teaching on man and woman, especially Pope John Paul IIs Theology of the Body. As a newlywed, I was completing my graduate work at the Pontifical Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family. I had plenty of book knowledge about the divine plan for human love, but the journey from head to heart would be a long and rocky one. Right around our first anniversary, someone asked us how married life had been going. I smiled at Wendy and boasted, You know, a lot of people say the first year of marriage can be really difficult, but its been easy for us. Years later my wife would tell me, Thats when I knew you were utterly clueless.

Mercy.... That cluelessness was to last another nine years or so.

It wasnt that I was oblivious to various tensions. We had our ups and downs, like any couple. But overall the first ten years of married life seemed great to me. I had a wonderful wife and awesome kids; I was getting lots of accolades traveling the world as a best-selling author and lecturer; and during our tenth year of marriage, I was offered a lucrative book deal by the biggest publishing house in the world. My ship had come in. Or so it seemed. Little did I know my ship was taking on water, and some major storms were just on the horizon. As I would come to learn through various painful trials, I was wearing a lot of masks. And I was looking to my marriage to fill an infinite hunger for love that only the Infinite One can fill.

Each marriage is a kind of salvation history, observes Pope Francis, which from fragile beginningsthanks to Gods gift and a creative and generous response on our partgrows over time into something precious and enduring (The Joy of Love, 221). The reflections I offer here provide a glimpse into various chapters of that ongoing salvation history. I share some rather personal stories from my own marriage and throughout my lifenot to draw attention to myself, but in hopes of inspiring readers to take a closer look at their own lives and relationships and, in doing so, open more deeply to Gods mercy.

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