If the entire Christian project—all our doctrines, our sacraments, our laws, and our sacrifices—could be reduced to one essential mandate, i...
If the entire Christian project—all our doctrines, our sacraments, our laws, and our sacrifices—could be reduced to one essential mandate, it is the text we heard today. St. Paul gives us the "more excellent way": Love.
We can have faith to move mountains and understand every mystery, but without love, we are a noisy gong. We can give all we have to the poor and even be martyred, but without love, we gain nothing.
This love (agape) that Paul describes is not a fleeting emotion; it is the very definition of Christian Living. It is practical, tough, and active: Love is patient when we want to be angry. Love is kind when the world is cruel. It does not seek its own way, is not jealous, and does not brood over injury. It bears all things, hopes all things, endures all things. This is the daily, moment-by-moment work of a true disciple, contradicting the cynical generation in the Gospel that refuses to engage with either joy or seriousness.
And why is this the "more excellent way"? Because it is the only thing that is Lasting. Paul tells us prophecies will fail, tongues will cease, knowledge will vanish. Faith will one day become sight. Hope will be fulfilled in possession. But Love... love never fails. Love is the only thing we can take with us into eternity, because God Himself is Love. Our mission is to practice this eternal, living reality, right now.
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