From figures such as Desmond Tutu, a civil rights leader in apartheid-era South Africa, to Catherine de Hueck Doherty, a social justice pioneer, through individual quotations, the book’s voices discuss the practise of love and how it relates to themes such as starvation, human mortality and selflessness.
Both the foreword and introduction are immediately captivating. By including a personal element, Jennifer Fulwiler’s foreword provides an honest and blatant observation about society, which makes ideas about love less abstract and more relatable. Fulwiler points out that we live in a “culture where confusion about love is rampant both in society at large and in the individual human heart.” She also provides examples of nagging questions with which we struggle, such as “How do you love yourself without becoming selfish?” This encourages readers to reflect and actively read, whereby the reader becomes increasingly engaged with the book as opposed to being a passive and objective witness to text.
The book includes ungrouped quotations with no particular organization. This makes it difficult to grasp concepts and connect ideas. Organizing the ideas into themes would increase the coherence and flow of the presented material. Without this type of organization, the quotes reflect on concepts that seem independent of each other. Greater unity of the ideas would also better reflect the unity of love, which is a repeated concept in Love Never Fails.
Avid readers of classic literature may appreciate the book’s use of metaphors. This compilation exploits figurative language to transform trivial things into abstract concepts that could be applied to daily life. For example, St. John of the Cross compares human ignorance to human blindness: “O terrible human blindness. So great a light about you and you do not see it! So clear a voice sounding and you do not hear!”
The quotation also includes a symbol repeated throughout the compilation — light. This is befitting the idea of experiencing love through our senses.
The author also brilliantly develops the motif of starvation, the human need for more. She metaphorically associates starvation with a deficit of love in this world. The quotes that stood out were those applicable to contemporary society as the condition of starvation is embodied in both global and local poverty. For instance, Doherty believes that “The hunger for God can only be satisfied by a love that is face to face, person to person... We must make the other person aware we love him. If we do, he will know that God loves him. He will never hunger again.”
The starvation motif reappears in Ramon Lull’s quote where God’s love is symbolized by a fountain: “They (the lepers) asked the Lover which was the fountain of love. He answered that it was the one where the Beloved had cleansed us from our sins, and from which He gives us, as a free gift, that living water which brings whoever drinks it to eternal life in endless love.” Once again, Herbeck purposefully includes this quotation to tempt us with ideas about love, ideas which will only begin to satiate our desire to be loved and to love.
This is associated with our mortality as human beings and perhaps the finiteness of our physical being. Romano Guardini’s quote illustrates the theme of human ephemerality: “it is the power (of creative love) that enables things to be themselves and rescues them from degeneration and decay.”
Guardini continues: “The soul lives on... an infinitely deep and blessed mystery.” There is a contrast between the morality of the physical being and the immortality of the soul. This is also developed by additional quotes which represent life as a journey. To effectively emphasize this theme, Herbeck should have organized these quotes into one category.
Herbeck cleverly includes the world as a “setting” in her book. Many of the quotations mention the “world” and the idea of working with others to make the world a better place.
At the end of Love Never Fails, Herbeck includes biographies of the personalities she has quoted, which can help readers appreciate the events that inspired their quotes. Tutu for instance, was afflicted with racial circumstances, but appreciated his self-worth enough to struggle for social change. Tutu states, “Dear Child of God... God loves you, period... we are loveable precisely because God loves us. It is marvellous when you come to understand that you are accepted for who you are, apart from any achievement. It is liberating.” As a fighter for civil rights in apartheid-era South Africa, Tutu did not experience freedom for a long time. It is refreshing that Herbeck includes this quote as well as his biography to allow the reader to appreciate the context behind his ideas about love.
Herbeck does a good job of representing a diverse array of people and their ideas. It makes the book relatable to a variety of people in different circumstances by undermining barriers of race, gender and class that may separate them. But the concept of freedom was underdeveloped.
Herbeck repeated the idea of “practising” love, a love that can incite social change. In fact, the book concludes with St. Catherine of Siena’s quote: “Everything comes from love, all is ordained for the salvation of man; God does nothing without this goal in mind.” The idea of an active God does not conclude with Love Never Fails, but encourages the continual practice of love.
(Osei-Yeboah, 18, is a first-year student at the University of Toronto.)