Against these deformations we can remember what Franz Kafka said: "Love is everything that increases, broadens, enriches the

our life, towards all heights and all depths" (text contained in

Conversations with Gustav Janouch). Love, as Christianity conceives it, not only realizes what Kafka states, but elevates and divinizes it. Christian marriage starts from sexuality but conceives it as a gift from God and spiritual elevation.
Among the most enthusiastic supporters of Christian love is Léon Bloy (1846-1917), an impetuous writer with a dazzling style and prophetic intuitions. His book Lettres à sa fiancée-in Italian translation My beloved Jeanne, my only love (Armonious City, 1978) is surprising. It reveals to us the miracle that the pure, strong, spiritual love of a girl can work in a man at the mercy of desperation. A book that he knows of ecstasy, of transfiguration, of intense joy against backgrounds crossed by infernal flashes. In the encounter with love, engaged couples discover the most exhilarating aspects of their condition and understand that engagement is a royal path towards the realization of human and Christian fullness.
Who is Léon Bloy? In the history of literature he is best known for the autobiographical novel Le désespéré - The Desperate - in which he narrates the extraordinary experience he had from meeting a street girl (Veronica in the novel) who he converted after a tumultuous cohabitation. In Lettres à sa fiancée Bloy allows us, at the same time, to penetrate the turmoil of his life and to witness the miracle wrought in him by true love. He is 43 years old, with various works under his belt, a past-present that burns his soul, and a future full of uncertainties; his girlfriend is Jeanne Molbeck, Danish, Protestant. “You are a girl from the North, as white as the snow of the mountains, educated according to the strictest principles. I, on the other hand, am a son of the fiery South, saturated with sensual life, eager for ephemeral joys, full of imaginative dreams. They say he's half crazy. A horrible existence, mixed with infernal passions, has spoiled me, trampled me, oppressed me" (p.59).
Between the two, despite the difference in age, religion and temperament, a communion of souls is established that is so intense and elevating that it presents itself as a rebirth. Jeanne's love revives Léon's soul. "I was right on the edge of the abyss. Crushed by pain and desperation, I felt like I was dying [...]. Thanks to you, thanks to you alone, my profound love, God wanted the great miracle of my resurrection" (p. 32).
The thought of his girlfriend is like a balm that soothes the most atrocious suffering, calms passions, instills such energy as to be able to face any struggle. Jeanne is the "consolation", the "beloved Samaritan", the "only hope she has on earth", the "everything" of her life, the meaning of her days. The thought of his beloved gives him the gift of tears: “Tears of infinite sweetness […].Holy tears of the true joy of the Lord. Tears that save our souls from death. Tears freely granted by God. Tears of abandonment, capable of resurrecting" (p.19).
The more the grayness of his impossible life - economic hardship, misunderstandings, passionate outbursts, contempt for the big world and official culture - presses against his door, the stronger Jeanne's thoughts make him. She knows that God gave him the love of the young woman so that in it he would find the meaning of life and the strength to win. "If you had taken me away, everything would have been taken away from me." She seeks it, she loves it, awaits it as a gift from God. “You were given to me, unexpectedly. I didn't look for you". God's gift cannot be in vain: it is an offer of joy ("Infinite joy. So much joy almost crushed me, I almost died from happiness"), of salvation ("My beloved, my desired promised land" ), of courage. The intensity of love for her is also rooted in the awareness that God, not him, is the director of her vocation to marriage. We meet and love each other because God, from eternity, has thus designed. In this sacred light everything acquires value and beauty.
The sense of rebirth and emotion that pervades Léon's soul at the mere thought of Jeanne derives from three considerations. First of all, from knowing that he is an object of love despite the fact that he feels "poor, desperate, beggarly, mad, hungry". "You, my beloved, were not disgusted by my darkness and my misery." She sought him out and enveloped him in total love. Secondly, Jeanne quenches the "desperate" thirst for tenderness and love that Léon has always felt. “I am dying of thirst for love”. With love, she gives him the joy of living and hoping, the enthusiasm of struggle and commitments. "I'm starting to see some light, I who thought the light was lost forever. It's certain that I couldn't do without you, that I can do nothing without you". Finally, with Jeanne's love, Léon feels the increasingly intense and life-giving presence of God's love. Human love reawakens him to divine love. "I have returned to hope, to the great hope of the past; I have rediscovered the spirit of prayer and I have resumed the holy practices, abandoned for a long time"; "God and us! Divine life and human life realized at the same time by our union."
The intelligence of human love, as an expression of divine love, will perform two "miracles": Jeanne's conversion to Catholicism and the joy of seeing their love develop in the light of God, in purity and profound communion. "We will be able to present ourselves at the altar without having to blush at the memory of serious sins. We will be exactly what we should be and we will exchange the wedding ring in the purity of our hearts."
Lettres à sa fiancée is a love poem. Like Bloy's most beautiful pages, it reflects the beauty and power of transfiguration that the great realities of life acquire when they are lived in their truth and purity" That is, in the light of God. When the love of two engaged couples sails at odds tall takes on an ambiguous strength: it can elevate and save, but also degrade and ruin. It all depends on how it is conceived and experienced. Love is not a reality that can be enslaved, used at will, tamed. It has its lights and its shadows. Françoìs Mauríac's drama Living Bread ends with the following line: "Two young people who love each other in the light of Grace are the most beautiful thing in the world. And also the most beneficial thing. But when the love of engaged couples, instead of preparing for the communion of life and destinies, for human and religious maturation, ends up in a passionate adventure, ends up tiring, separating and degrading".
In a PS to the letter of 14 February 1890 Bloy wrote: "The month of March is approaching, the month of Saint Joseph which I love very much". It is to be believed that Maria's husband illuminated and inspired her love for Jeanne.