Love Builds Up By Beth DeCristofaro

Love Builds Up  By Beth DeCristofaro

 

Brothers and sisters: Knowledge inflates with pride, but love builds up. (1 Corinthians 8:1)

 

But rather, love your enemies and do good to them, and lend expecting nothing back; then your reward will be great and you will be children of the Most High, for he himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as also your Father is merciful. “Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. (Luke 6:36-37)

 

 

 

Piety

  In the Hope that the arc of history bends towards Justice, we lift our prayers for reconciliation and peace.

  We pray for an end to violence perpetrated by harsh words, deadly weapons, or cold indifference; may our homes, our nations and all countries throughout the world become havens of peace.[i]

 

Study

The days are long past when we had school-age art hanging on our refrigerator.  But many of those masterpieces are still in our basement, tucked into boxes for safety.  How hard it is to throw away those things made for us by people we love.  How hard it is even to question the need for those things!  It is also difficult to examine or throw away the opinions and beliefs we hold to examine new ones such as “black lives matter” or “systemic racism.”

 

Jesus today tells us to love our enemies.  Yet today we seem to have forgotten the values God offers us through Jesus in favor of idols such as Democracy in “my” image not “yours.”  Paul wrestles with the question of Corinthians sincerely wanting to follow Jesus in a society whose practices might put new believers in danger.  Animal sacrifice was practiced in pagan temples.  Meat leftovers from those rituals were sold to the public in stores. Could Christians eat this meat? Paul’s words are a warning.  He explains that the act itself could be without sin, but there might follow consequences unforeseen:  If someone sees you, with your knowledge, reclining at table in the temple of an idol, may not his conscience too, weak as it is, be “built up” to eat the meat sacrificed to idols? (1 Corinthians 8:10).  It is safer not to indulge than to lead others away from Jesus.

 

Action

Indulge in love!  How prone am I to accept the “knowledge” of somebody and assign right or wrong to someone else?  Without throwing out all my refrigerator-display philosophies, I can take time to box them up and listen. Listen to Jesus and his/our brothers/sisters in love.  The Corinthian community, full of weak, strong, sinful and holy people, is ours, is us, in faith. It is our turn now to build up the Kingdom with love.

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[i] (Mass celebrating National Day of Prayer for Peace in our Communities, Cathedral of St. Peter in Chains, Archdiocese of Cincinnati, 9/9/2020)

 

Illustration:  logo from "Pray a Minute" Archdiocese of Cincinnati, https://www.prayaminute.com/