Reflection
I want focus on today’s first reading from St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians. This famous “Hymn of Love” is one of the most familiar scripture passages and frequently used at Catholic weddings.
Prior to this passage, Paul has been teaching about the various gifts of the Spirit with which different people are endowed so that they can better serve the needs of the community in different ways. However, today he goes further and says that, above and beyond any gifts or ‘charisms’, there is “a still more excellent way”. That way is the over-riding element of love. Love is not on the same level as the other gifts. Rather, it is one of the most evident signs of the presence of the Spirit of Christ in the community and its members.
The Greek word used for ‘Love’ here, as in many parts of the New Testament, is ‘Agape,’ a word with a very specific meaning. Agape is reaching out to another person with a deep desire for that person’s total well-being and wholeness, without expecting anything in return. It is a totally unconditional form of loving. It is the love that God extends to all creatures whether they return that love or not.
Paul gives four exaggerated examples of some of the gifts to be found in the community:
• eloquence, even to the point of being able to speak not only every earthly language, but the language of angels;
• prophecy (in the sense we described it yesterday), the ability to understand all mysteries and “knowing everything” that can be known;
• faith, strong enough to move mountains (as Jesus said true faith could do);
• generosity, which would give away everything one has, even to offering one’s body in martyrdom.
To have any of these gifts in the highest degree could make one a prominent and highly respected person in the community. But if, at bottom, these things are not motivated by genuine Agape, they are rated as nothing.
Speaking both positively and negatively, Paul now lists the qualities of this kind of agape love. These virtues reveal what Paul does not see in the Corinthian community.
Paul sums up by saying that in the end only three things will perdure: faith, hope and agape love. We will not need faith when we are face to face with our infinite Creator. We will not need hope because every possible desire of our being will be fulfilled forever. But agape will remain. Face to face with God, we will be eternally bathed in that agape which pours from him and fills us with the happiness for which we were created.
Today’s Question for Prayer and Reflection
In what area do you need to increase in Agape Love?
Source for today’s reflection: https://sacredspace.com/commentary/o2244r/