A Reflection on St. Paul’s Words about Love

We often wonder about love. What is love? What does it mean to really love someone? Our modern world tells us that love is a feeling. How do we feel love? What if we don’t feel love? Some say that If you stop loving your spouse, you should probably leave. If you don’t love your job all the time, you should probably change careers. Love is vital; if you don’t have love, there’s no reason to do anything. There is some real wisdom to this, but there’s also some real danger.

Our emotions are fickle and often change so frequently that we can’t really rely on them. As Thomas à Kempis states in The Imitation of Christ, “Thou oughtest not to judge according to present feeling; nor so take any grief, or give thyself over to it, from whencesover it cometh, as though all hope of escape were quite taken away.” In his medieval language, Kempis tells us that we are quite apt to consider the world at an end when faced by minor setbacks. Likewise, at times, we are quite ready to walk out of work when we face even the slightest resistance. On the flipside, we are quite ready at times to throw away everything for a happy feeling. I really want that item; what does it matter if I don’t have the money?” “I really feel great about this person. To heck with my marriage!” These are the kinds of things our feelings can tell us.

Imitations of Love

Moments of despair or elation don’t often mean much. Sacrifice and commitment matter more than ego-driven feelings. In 1 Corinthians chapter 13, St. Paul first tells us what love might seem to be to outsiders. We might expect to find love in flowery love language or passionate words. These are just like the “clanging cymbal.” We might think that a person with great faith or courage had the most love. But even great faith or courage can lack love. Finally, even sacrifice and penance don’t imply love – think of the elder son in the parable. St. Paul writes, “If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.” Love is more than all these things, so what is it?

Though he doesn’t say it, I think St. Paul implies that taking up our cross is at the root of what it means to love. In my opinion, the next paragraph of the chapter is really a reflection of our daily crosses. I like to bring this paragraph to my consideration of those moments in which I’m ready to burst in with irritable impatience during a conversation or to demand something I think is my right. “Love is patient and kind,” St. Paul writes. He lists many things that love is not. I wonder sometimes how St. Paul chose to order these ideas. Does jealousy or envy somehow have a connection to boastfulness? Does dishonoring others spring from a self-seeking attitude? At any rate, jealousy, self-seeking, and the rest are often part of our daily struggles.

Impostors of Love

The most impactful part for me comes around line 5. Depending on the translation being used, the impact of the words can change slightly. I’ve been quoting from the NIV, but I usually have read this chapter in the RSV version. In the NIV, 13:5 reads “[love] does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs,” while the RSV reads “[love] is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful.” In either case, not being resentful or keeping a record of wrongs seems like one of the most challenging aspects of love for humans. Even when we manage to hold our tongue, there is always a temptation towards bitter, resentful thoughts.

We see that the love in the Epistle is so much more than the passing fancies that wreck our world or fill us with vain desires. Ultimately, this kind of love is eternal. This love has patience that is alien to our very impatient world. Our world insists on its own way 100% of the time, but it is the flexible, less-ostentatious type of love that “never fails.” To see this love, we need to learn to love. It may not be that we need to find things we can love so much as we need to learn to love the things we have.

In fact, we are on a process towards true sight (as St. Paul calls it), but we only begin it on this earth. St. Paul writes, “Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” Thus, our process of knowing depends on being known. In fact, to be loved is to be known. Hence, we will only learn to see God by being loved by God, and we only learn to love through His love.

The Primacy of Love

Finally, we come to the last line of the chapter, which is maybe the most confusing. Why does St.Paul feel the need to set the virtues of faith, hope, and love in a kind of hierarchy? Why tell us that “love” is the most important? Couldn’t that run the risk of making our faith too emotive? Again, the love in this chapter is not the emotive type. In fact, having said “[love] always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres,” it seems that St. Paul is telling us that love encompasses the virtues of faith and hope. Love makes these virtues possible.