Teaching By Fr Emmanuel Okami
Reading (1) 1 Corinthians 12: 31-13:13
Brothers and sisters:
Strive eagerly for the greatest spiritual gifts.But I shall show you a still more excellent way.
If I speak in human and angelic tongues
but do not have love,
I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal.
And if I have the gift of prophecy
and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge;
if I have all faith so as to move mountains,
but do not have love, I am nothing.
If I give away everything I own,
and if I hand my body over so that I may boast
but do not have love, I gain nothing.Love is patient, love is kind.
It is not jealous, love 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.
Gospel Luke 7:31-35
Jesus said to the crowds:
“To what shall I compare the people of this generation?
What are they like?
They are like children who sit in the marketplace and call one another,‘We played the flute for you, but you did not dance.
We sang a dirge, but you did not weep.’For John, the Baptist came neither eating food nor drinking wine,
and you said, ‘He is possessed by a demon.’
The Son of Man came eating and drinking and you said,
‘Look, he is a glutton and a drunkard,
a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’
But wisdom is vindicated by all her children.”
The first reading is St Paul’s treatise on love. He made three points on love:
- Love is the greatest of all virtues.
- Every spiritual gift without love is bereft of value. Whatever is our charism, gift, skills and talents, if we are not driven by the true love of God and neighbour, it is useless.
- St Paul stated the character of love. Worthy of special note is the fact that love takes no pleasure in people’s faults. This is another way of saying “love covers multitudes of sins” (1Pet 4;8).
Dear friends, let us always pray for the virtue of love.
Love does the following in a soul;
- Love will make us resemble God in character (Matthew 5:45).
- Love will make us overcome our fiercest adversary and antagonists (case study is David and Saul in 1 Samuel 26 pay attention to it from 21-Saul’s reaction to David’s mercy on him).
- Love makes us forgive injuries easily and tolerate one another.
Absalom killed his brother but David could forgive because he loves him: 2 Sam 13:1-39, 14:1-33, he usurped the throne and made his father a fugitive but even at that the Father (David) loved him and wept when he died.
- Love will make us excuse people and judge them with compassion.
Where there is no love, we become critical and find fault with everything. We act meanly, judge unfairly and our discernment lacks objectivity.
This is the case with the children in Jesus’ analogy in the Gospel. They refused to dance to the tune of the pipe and will not mourn when the dirge is sung. Every effort to please them was unproductive, they found fault with every attempt to please or minister to them. This is how we are when love has no root in us.
Let us pray today for the virtue of love; to look beyond the faults of others, to be kind to others like God irrespective of whether they deserve it or not, to accept others in good spirit despite their weaknesses.
You may not be able to speak to fishes like St Francis, you may not be a wonder-worker like St Anthony, you may not be courageous like St Lawrence or prayerful like St Scholastica, you may not have the gifts of bilocation and prophecy of Padre Pio or the fortitude of Goretti but heaven must be able to testify that “you truly love others.”
This is the first condition for entering heaven: no soul can enter heaven unless his love for others is truly tested and proven.