So we're not just talking about any sort of love, much less some kind of vague sentimental everybody's-okay-lovey-dovey stuff. We are talking about the supernatural virtue of charity, God's own love in which we are called and empowered to participate through God's grace and His utterly mysterious, free and supernatural gift of Himself.
All of this is true.
Still, look at how Saint Paul describes this "love" -- patient, kind, not pompous, not rude, not grudge-bearing, rejoicing in the truth, enduring all things.
Enduring all things. That certainly seems beyond any sort of limited human love. But also patient, kind, not pompous, not rude, not quick-tempered or self-interested. It rejoices in the truth. It never fails.
This is a close, intimate love. It is a human love, the most human of loves. It is the love that we have been created to give and receive, and which we long for whether we know it or not.
Indeed, this inexhaustible Love corresponds to our whole humanity, because He has entered our history. He has become flesh.
Jesus.
Love has given Himself to us, to each and every one of us, so that we could be touched by Him and respond to Him with faith and hope, with trust, and be transformed into lovers of Him and of one another.
If I look at these verses seriously, I can't help but be struck by the fact that my life is so far from being this way. It causes me sorrow, and sometimes I am tempted to look away, to settle for some lesser kind of love. But I would have to lie to myself (and others too) because I know deep down that this love is the only thing that matters in the end. I was created for this love. You were created for this love.
But we must not lie to one another, and we must never become discouraged. We may stumble again and again in the ways of love, but He is with us, always ready to lift us up and lead us forward if we let Him. We can begin again, every day, because He has come to dwell with us. God became our brother because He wants to be with us.
Let us place our confidence in Him, and begin again.
Love is patient, love is kind.
It is not jealous, it is not pompous,
It is not inflated, it is not rude,
it does not seek its own interests,
it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury,
it does not rejoice over wrongdoing
but rejoices with the truth.
It bears all things, believes all things,
hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails.
If there are prophecies, they will be brought to nothing;
if tongues, they will cease;
if knowledge, it will be brought to nothing.
For we know partially and we prophesy partially,
but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.
When I was a child, I used to talk as a child,
think as a child, reason as a child;
when I became a man, I put aside childish things.
At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror,
but then face to face.
At present I know partially;
then I shall know fully, as I am fully known.
So faith, hope, love remain, these three;
but the greatest of these is love.
