Word to the Wise
Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - Wednesday in the 24th Week in Ordinary Time
[1 Cor 12:31-13:13 and Luke 7:31-35]Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, love is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not broo over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. [1 Cor.]
Where does one begin when meditating on St. Paul's famous passage on love? He speaks of it as the highest gift. St. Thomas Aquinas, O.P., places it always in relation to how we love God because love is a gift from God which enables us to love others as well. This latter point is important in our culture where the images of love are often disconnected and unrelated to faith in God. I was recently treated to a viewing of the Disney movie, FROZEN. The movie clearly speaks to the restorative power of a deep and true love - interestingly enough, between two blood sisters! But there was no reference to any higher power than the kinship of the two.
What kind of "gift" is love? The passage from St. Paul quoted above tells us the various qualities of love, but we know from our experience that almost every human relationship is subject to some of the problems mentioned. I think we have to examine our own experience and ask when we felt that someone had freely chosen us and stayed with us over years of time, as perhaps a starting point. There are fierce "natural" loves like that of parents for a child or grandchild, but this is very different [even if very real] from "friendship" which has to be freely given and not inherited.
Can we connect any human relationship in our lives with our relationship to God? This is the ultimate basis for any Christian love. Can we love anyone as God loves us or as we love God? It's not an easy question to ask oneself, but it's at the very foundation of Christianity. AMEN