Word to the Wise
Wednesday, September 18, 2024 - Wednesday in the 24th Week in Ordinary Time
[1 Cor 12:31-13:13 and Luke 7:31-35]If I speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal.....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 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.....So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love. [1 Corinthians]
SEPTEMBER 18 ST. JUAN MACIAS, O.P.
After reading these justly famous words from St. Paul, can anyone say they have experienced love? The words are definitely challenging. One might easily add at the end: "Love is tough!" We have coated it with valentine and romantic sentiment to the point that "true love" becomes the stuff of movies and pulp fiction. My memory is a bit vague but I seem to recall the famous psychologist, Carl Rogers, being quoted as saying you know you are "in love" with someone when their welfare means more to you than your own.
Love is considered to be a "virtue" - a disposition to act in a certain way. It is more than feeling attracted to someone, whether self or other. But both self and other are involved because, as St. Thomas Aquinas teaches us, if we don't love ourselves, we cannot love others. In giving retreats over many years, I have challenged retreatants to do a "history of love" in their life. What experiences of "love" can they recount? It really begins in the womb! I challenge new parents at baptisms to teach their child how to give and receive love. Without love, all the other virtues become simply ethical traits that are guided by self-interest because no one else is of value unless they advance those self-interests.
All I can do is to reflect on St. Paul's words and those of Jesus I find in the gospel and ask myself how well I can reflect them in my friendships with others. What is my experience of God's love, or the love I receive from a friend? And what are my experiences of trying to love both of them? After doing that, I am truly grateful that love is tough! It has to be! AMEN