On Saturday I was at a wedding and heard a fairly good homily. The focus was on the term "passion" as suffering, and how love is truly love to the extent that it costs. The priest talked about how the phrase "this is my body, given for you," is fitting in not only the sexual context of marriage, but in every aspect of the physical giving that we do. Of course, this would include work, childbearing, care taking, and etc.
It strikes me that for this reason perhaps, laziness is a very unsexy characteristic! If I am to demonstrate love for my husband, but do not wish to sweep the floor because it seems like too much work, then I am not particularly embracing the passion of married life. That is not to relegate certain tasks to certain gender roles, of course. My point is that being willing to give of oneself must be enfleshed. The passion of life, the fire, the love, the excitement, does not come in great waves of emotional exaltation (or perhaps I should say not only in great waves of emotional exaltation) but also in the free and decided gift of my effort, my sweat. And perhaps especially when this goes mostly unseen, unapplauded. I think this is not only sexy, but grace-filled! I'm actually not sure there is a real need to differentiate between the two adjectives.
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