Wednesday, September 19, 2018

       Readings: Click here for readings

Today, in Mercy, we encounter the often-read, less-practiced Corinthians passage on love. Could there be any word more massacred in our human language? Watch a few minutes of “Bachelorette”, or read a few Valentine’s cards, or listen to a commercial that tells you how much you’ll love some car! You’ll see what I mean.

Our souls so desperately need to learn and re-learn Paul’s definition of love.

To open, Paul tells us that nothing we do matters if it is done without love. Does this mean we have to enjoy executing all the duties required of us? I think not. Sometimes a duty feels like a drudgery.

But Paul is speaking here to our motivation. All that we do must be done because we care for and honor ourselves and others. This lightens any sense of burden and gives us a resilience and joy even in difficulty. This is what real love looks like.

Paul goes on to name the specific characteristics of love.  If you’re like me, this section is like a checklist against which I measure myself:

• Patient? – sometimes. 
• Jealous, pompous, boastful, rude? – uh oh!
• Does not seek its own interests? – (alarms now going off)

Yes, the deeper we go into this passage, the more we realize how far we are from the kind of love Paul describes.

The whole point of the spiritual journey is to continually refine our understanding and practice of love until it fits more perfectly to the pattern of Jesus Who is Love.

Let’s all pray today to “clang” a little less, and love a lot more.

Music: Love Goes On ~ Bernadette Farrell