Word to the Wise
Sunday, January 31, 2016 - 4th Sunday in Ordinary Time - C
[Jer 1:4-5, 17-19; 1 Cor 12:31-13:13 or 13:4-13; Luke 4:21-30]Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, it 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 brood 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. [1 Corinthians]
Read those words from St. Paul and ask yourself if they represent both your understanding as well as your experience of love. On retreats I ask the participants to do a "history" of love in their lives beginning with what they would consider their very first conscious experience of love. This can be a tough challenge. Our ability to give and receive love is strongly shaped by the first few months and years of our lives. Our subsequent relationships will be influenced by the expectations we develop as children!
Infancy is not destiny, even if those early experiences are important. We can learn to love later, but not easily. God's design as creator shows that our first experiences of love are meant to come through our parents and family. It is for this reason that the deterioration of the family as a fundamental social unit is so dangerous. Our very faith is a response to God's tremendous love, but if we have never experienced that love in the person of those closest to us, how can we believe in God except as an abstract notion or a distant governor?
St. Paul's words about love are popular at weddings. There the focus is on the couple who become ministers of God's love first to each other and then to their children and others. The ability to meet this challenge will vary and the high divorce rate in our country indicates that God's love and true human love based on God's love has little to do with a marital commitment for many people. The recent synod of bishops on the family has indicated the importance of developing a new catechesis to prepare couples for the great sacrament of love. I hope this catechesis will include doing that "history of love" in the life of the man and woman. If we cannot love one another (limited as we are) as God loves us, we are likely to continue the appalling cycle of war and violence that afflicts our world today. AMEN
config
view
logs
4096.0 KB
84 ms
4
