"The Greatest of These is Love" by Colleen O’Sullivan
Strive eagerly for the greatest spiritual gifts. But I shall show you a still more excellent way. If I speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing. So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 12:31 – 13:1-8, 13)
Piety
Lord, help us to love our brothers and sisters as you love us.
Study
I am writing this on Monday, so I have no idea who will end up the winner of this season’s America’s Got Talent competition. All the finalists are winners in my book simply because they are each so good at what they do. One person in particular, however, literally brings tears to my eyes and touches my heart deeply when he sings. Michael Ketterer works as a pediatric mental health nurse. He and his wife have six children, five of whom they adopted from the foster care system. These kids came to their new family with many special needs. Both father and mother toil long hours every day to keep their family going. This dad said he’s on the show because he wants his children to see that dreams can come true. He explained that when you’re in the foster care system, it’s difficult to have any dreams. When Michael Ketterer talks about his family, I feel the intensity of the love he has for them, love like that which the apostle Paul describes in our first reading today, love that is entirely self-giving and other-directed.
Most of us have heard at a wedding or two some of what Paul writes about love. Oddly enough, however, the apostle wasn’t thinking about brides and grooms or flower girls or soft candlelight at all when he penned these words. He needed to make a stark impression on the Christians in Corinth. Paul found himself writing to a church much like ours today, divided and quarrelsome. The first century Corinthians were fighting over their belief that some gifts of the Spirit were more prestigious than others, creating ugly jockeying for position among themselves.
Paul tells them to chill out; there’s something far more important than all of these gifts put together. In fact, if you don’t possess this, he says, it doesn’t matter how gifted you may be or in what area your gifts lie; you are nothing. The greatest gift that God gives us is the gift of love. Not love that depends on feelings but agape love, love that consists wholly of giving of yourself to and for another. In other words, you may have the gift of tongues, but if you don’t have self-giving love, your voice just adds to the noisy chaos of the world. If you have the gifts of prophecy or faith but do not possess the gift of selfless love, you have nothing to say to the Church. Even if you are willing to give away all your material goods, your gift is in vain if it isn’t paired with selfless love.
Action
Paul’s words are an invitation to take a good hard look at ourselves, as individuals and as the Church as a whole. What are our motivations for what we do? If you’re in a choir, as I am, why do we sing? Are we performing, or are we conscious of our role in musically guiding the congregation deeper into prayer? If you chair a committee in your parish, are you doing it out of love for those people whose lives are affected by whatever your committee does or do you just enjoy the power of your job as chairperson of something? Sometimes being in charge in and of itself gives us a rush.
Look at the big picture of what’s playing out in our Church today. If we as a whole were full of self-giving love toward our brothers and sisters, would we be where we are now? Or would we really and truly have effected changes that say to the victims of clerical sexual abuse, “We in Christ’s Church on earth are full of sorrow and remorse for what you have suffered. We have taken measures to ensure that no one who inflicts such hurt on another human being can be given another appointment and that knowingly appointing such an individual to another position within the Church will never again be tolerated.”
When you pray today, keep in mind Paul’s words. No matter what our gifts as individuals or as the Church, without self-giving love in our hearts, it’s all for naught. That’s a sobering thought and that’s exactly what Paul meant it to be. The greatest thing we can do is love one another as Christ has loved each of us.
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