The Surrender, Culmination of Love

25 April, 2026

Donate Subscribe

EduFamilia

Voices

20 February, 2026

13 min

The Surrender, Culmination of Love

Personal and Free Gift

The fundamental reason for the delivery

Surrender, the fullness of love

What we saw in the previous articles allows us to conclude that the giving of oneself constitutes the most natural and radical culmination of love.

It could be explained as follows.

He who loves, and precisely because of his love, increases his capacity to know the beloved, to see him more deeply and from within: the intus-legere, to which I alluded in the preceding article.
With this new vigor, he discovers and perceives all the wonder that the loved one holds within himself and the adventure of improvement and fulfillment to which he is called.
And then, without words, with his very being, with his entire existence!, he can only affirm… precisely his surrender!

And it will do so with these or similar words, explicit or simply intuited:

“It is worth it for me to dedicate myself fully to your service so that you may attain that marvel of perfection and beauty that you are destined to achieve and that I, because of my love, have discovered in you! “

It is worthwhile
for me to put myself
fully at your service…

To combine the “we,” an essential manifestation of commitment

At that very moment, life begins to be conjugated in the second person singular and the first person plural: you and us.
One begins to see and understand not only with one’s own eyes, but also and fundamentally with the eyes and understanding of the loved one.
Therefore, everything is longed for and desired also through the heart of the one who is loved and, to a large extent, precisely because he or she appreciates it.

When there is genuine surrender,
the self disappears before the you and the we.

Dedication in everyday life

There are many circumstances in which what I have just suggested manifests itself simply, showing that surrender represents the complete measure and culmination of love.

Without going any further, in the everyday life of a good marriage and a good family.

In both, as it matures:

each member tends to bracket their own interests,
subordinates them to the needs and legitimate interests of the rest ,
“hands them over” to others.

Life begins to be conjugated
in the second person singular
and the first person plural:
you and we.

The contents of the delivery

The question that immediately arises is the following:

What do those who love each other aspire to exchange? What does the lover wish to offer to the person to whom he gives himself?

Ultimately,
what does the lover want to give
to the beloved?

An initial response is included in what has been seen so far, and it is worth highlighting.

The beloved “two goods”

It is often rightly said that loving is a complex act, encompassing and articulating two goods:

First and foremost, the person we love, who is good in the truest and most radical sense.
- The real and definitely loved.
- What, strictly speaking, should be called good.
- The radical end of our surrender.

Then, that which, to favor the one we love, we wish to offer them.
- Something that is good, therefore, precisely and exclusively, because it constitutes a good for the one we truly love.
- And it would cease to be good if it did not benefit the loved one.

The good,
in the highest and truest sense of the term,
is the person .

In other words:

When we love, we fundamentally and properly want someone, a person .
Love in its truest sense, like devotion, always has a person as its end.
And, because we love that person, we want to offer them something that is good for them .

The person is always present at the beginning and end of the delivery .

“Two” very different goods

Two goods, therefore, but of a very different type:

Good in its truest sense.
- That is, the person whom we ultimately love or care for, precisely because they are good: our devotion is directed to them.

And the other good, of very diverse kinds, which, precisely because we love her, we wish to give to the loved one, to help her be better:
- A particular object, useful or decorative.
- A material or spiritual service.
- An opportunity for growth or correction.
- A word of encouragement and support in the face of appropriate but difficult behavior, or a word of understanding reprimand and correction in the face of wrong behavior.
- A repeated gesture of affection…

The delivery is always
ultimately directed
to a person.

Wanting something for someone

Or, to put it more clearly:

To love is always, and in its truest sense, to want someone.
And precisely for that reason, because we love a person,
We also want what is good for him or her, and try to provide it.

Because we love a person,
the object of our devotion,
we also want what is good for them.

The person, the only true good

He discovers and establishes the philosophy

But we can still take it a step further, building on what I have just explained.

That is, taking into account that there is nothing in the universe “better”, of more value, than the person.

Or, to put it more accurately:

That the only thing that is good in itself, the only thing that is truly good, is precisely the person.
That only the person enjoys absolute value, while everything else is and is considered good in relation to him; that is, insofar as it benefits one or another person, without harming the rest.

The only thing that is truly good and worthy of dedication
is always a person.

And poetry expresses it well.

If, from this vantage point, we repeat the question about the good we should provide to those we love—the best we can offer them—a new answer begins to take shape.

A response that is well captured in the words of Salinas, which I will quote immediately, and which show us:

That the person, every person, is destined for the gift and the giving.
And that, for those same reasons, only when one gives oneself out of love, does one grow as a person and be happy; only then does one develop personally.

Let us first read Salinas, in what could be described as an anthropology of the gift (and of giving):

Gift, present, offering?

…the poet asks himself; and answers:

Pure symbol, sign / that I want to give myself. / What pain, to separate myself / from that which I give you / and which belongs to you / with no other destiny now / than to be yours, of you, / while I remain / on the other shore, alone, / still so much my own. / How I wish I could be / that which I give you / and not the one who gives it to you.

The person is constitutively oriented towards giving:
his greatest need is to love and to give himself.

The meaning of the gift

Gift and personal delivery

The person as the supreme gift

Small and fragile, yet magnificent

Why an anthropology of the gift (or of giving)?

I will merely suggest.

We are all aware of our own smallness, our limitations, and even the occasional meanness of some of our actions.

However, the personal condition of each human being, the sublime fact of being a person, elevates him to such an exalted height that it is difficult to imagine and impossible to exaggerate.

And it is precisely that greatness that justifies and legitimizes the delivery.

The personal condition of each human being
elevates him to an incomparable height,
difficult to imagine and impossible to exaggerate.

Only comparable to one other person

So prodigious, so colossal is his greatness, that the following law applies even to him—even to oneself, who is well aware of one’s weakness :

The person is so radically perfect that nothing is deemed worthy of being given to them if it is less than… another person!
Any other reality falls short, flat, remains far below what personal greatness demands.

If the recipient can only be a person,
then “that” being delivered must also be a person.

Far above any other reality

In a similar vein, Emerson maintained:

Rings and jewelry are not gifts, but apologies for gifts. The only gift is a piece of yourself.

“A portion of yourself”?

Your whole being, I would correct, recalling Saint John of the Cross:

There she gave me her breast, / there she taught me very tasty science, / and I gave her in fact / me, without leaving anything; / there I promised to be her wife.

And indeed, any gift only fulfills its function of recognition and reciprocal gift to the extent that the whole person who gives it is committed to it, and as embodied or condensed within it .

The person is so radically perfect
that nothing is worthy of being given to them
if it is less than another person!

Personal involvement in the gift

A profound truth

That only a person is worthy of being given a gift, or, in more common terms, that a gift only acquires value to the extent that, when making it, we put our heart into it, was something that certain ancient cultures, for example, the Greek, knew quite well.

Thus, when Telemachus tries to detain Athena, disguised as a stranger, he offers her

“a present, a priceless and beautiful gift that will be a treasure for you from me, like those who host give to their guests.”

And Athena answers him:

“Don’t hold me back any longer, for I long for the journey. Whatever gift your heart compels you to give me, give it to me when I return so I can take it home. Choose a truly good one, and you will receive another just as good in return.”

A gift acquires value
to the extent that, in making it,
we “put” our heart into it.

Today almost unknown

But, unfortunately, the personal depth of that gesture of surrender has been abandoned in today’s civilized world .

And the department stores, with their anonymous offers already arranged and well packaged, and with their impersonal and much-hyped gift cards, do little to repair that loss.

The right gift, they say, is precisely one in which one has not had to put any effort or special care into it: a precise amount of money, with which the recipient can buy whatever they want.

Where, then, is the personal and committed presence—the heart—of the giver, who tries to delight and, often, positively surprise the one he loves?

If “heart” and personal involvement are lacking,
the “price” adds no real value to any gift.

Gift and person in the contemporary world

The personal meaning of the gift and its contemporary “forgetting”

Therefore, it remains true even now that, regardless of its material value or price, a gift is worth what the person giving it (and through it, giving of themselves) puts into it: time, attention, knowledge of the loved one and their current circumstances, their hobbies and dreams at the moment…

Let’s recall one of the many memorable scenes from Dead Poets Society .

The one in which the same desk accessories, given as gifts for two consecutive years to one of the protagonists, fly out, out of spite—although also with humor—from the top of the small cavalcavia that connects two buildings.

This is an eloquent example of what, unfortunately, proliferates in our culture.

The gift is sometimes used, even between parents and children, or between spouses!, not as a manifestation of love and a symbol of devotion.
It is more of a superficial gesture, driven more by routine than by affection.
Or even a way to soothe one’s own bad conscience for the little interest we show to those we should love.
Or to buy and, with it, prostitute children who are not properly cared for and from whom, above all, one desires, often without realizing it, pampering, emotional compensation and peripheral thanks or, simply, to be left in peace.

In extreme conditions,
the gift is even used as a means
to appease the guilty conscience
for the lack of personal attention
to the one who would be deserving of our gift.

Invaluable exceptions: the intuitive value of personal commitment

At the opposite extreme, it is still moving today to see the delight with which the mother receives those four poorly arranged strokes that the son or daughter of very young years offers her on the occasion of her saint’s day or birthday or, perhaps, very particularly, on Mother’s Day.

A sketch that is worth nothing, absolutely nothing, except the whole person of the child!, who has poured his whole being into its elaboration —for one, two or more weeks—.

Mothers truly appreciate the value of that display of dedication, even if its commercial value is zero, because they discover in it the best of their son or daughter.

A gift is worth as much as the effort the person giving it puts
into it .

Goods ≠ gifts

The gratuitousness of the person, the gratuitousness of love

Person-love-gift

By its very nature, the gift is free.

And so, essentially, is love.

And the person.

The person and love.

The person, the love, and the gift.

Neither bought nor sold

The person…

It is neither bought nor sold nor accounted for.

It’s free.

It is donated.

Without reservations or conditions.

The person, love, and the gift
are essentially free .

Reciprocal delivery, but without “exchange”

Exchange of goods

Alberoni explains it by contrasting the path of commercial exchange with that of loving surrender.

In everyday life, the principle of calculable exchange applies: if I give you something, I want something in return , and it must be of the same value.
Among those who love each other, on the contrary, there is no accounting between what I give and what I receive.

In ordinary life the law of exchange prevails;
not so in the law of love.

Giving the gifts (and the love and the person)

Alberoni himself continues , emphasizing the gratuitous nature of the true gift:

Each one gives gifts to the other: things that seem beautiful to him, something that speaks of him, that reminds the beloved of him.
- But also things that please the other person, that the other person has named or preserved.
- Often the gift is an unforeseen act, a spontaneous gesture that symbolizes the donation of oneself, one’s total availability.
But the gift does not wait for another gift, it does not wait to be exchanged.
- When you give a gift, the balance is immediately equalized: it’s enough that the other person appreciates it, that they are happy. The other person’s joy is worth more than any object.
- In this way, there is a giving of gifts between the two, but without exchange.

“Accounting” kills love

When love is absent, true gifts also vanish:

And, on the contrary, when an accounting of gifts is triggered, a “I have given to you and you have not given to me,” it means that infatuation—love!—is about to end.
When everyone demands an accounting of giving and receiving, it means it’s completely over…

…or perhaps, that he had never truly been born.

Everyday life is governed by exchange;
on the contrary, those who love each other exclude any accounting.

Every person is called to giving, to self-giving:
and is only happy when they give.

(To be continued)

Tomás Melendo,
President of Edufamilia
http://www.edufamilia.com
[email protected]

EduFamilia

Edufamilia es una asociación sin ánimo de lucro, nacida en el año 2005. Su fundador, Tomás Melendo, advirtió que una mejora en la calidad de las familias facilitaría la resolución de bastantes de los problemas que aquejan a la sociedad de hoy. Y, apoyado siempre por su mujer, decidió lanzarse a esta aventura que cuenta con casi veinte años de vida y con múltiples ediciones de los distintos cursos formativos: Másteres y Maestrías, Expertos, cursos más breves, conferencias, ciclos culturales, seminarios y otros programas educativos. Aunque las primeras ediciones tuvieron carácter presencial, actualmente se ha hecho un gran esfuerzo por promover la infraestructura virtual para adaptarse a los nuevos tiempos y que la formación en torno a la familia alcance al mundo entero.