God is Love

iStock/Circle Creative Studio

I have joked more than a few times at Mass that there is one reading you will never hear at a priest’s funeral — this Sunday’s second reading from 1 Corinthians 13 — as we have heard it countless times at the weddings at which we have presided.

I must say that I always express a silent sigh of relief when I see that couples have chosen a different second reading for their wedding ceremony. That said, the second reading for the fourth Sunday of ordinary time is beautiful, and it manifests the primacy of God’s love and the centrality of Christian love in the life of Christ’s disciples.

At the time that St. Paul wrote his letters to the Corinthians, Corinth was a large and bustling Mediterranean port city which saw a diversity of influences and practices — some pagan, some Christian — and everything in between. The fact that Paul had to write two letters is evidence of their struggle to remain faithful to the Christian message, among the temptations and challenges of the multivalent culture surrounding them. What was particularly concerning to Paul were the divisions among them and the lack of Christian charity by some Corinthians. Specifically, the Eucharist, which is supposed to be a source and sign of unity in the Church, had become a place of division between the wealthy and those who struggled with less.

This is the backdrop for St. Paul’s sublime description of Christian charity, which we hear proclaimed on the fourth Sunday of ordinary time. Upon prayerful reflection and reading of this passage, the Christian can feel the presence of the Holy Spirit guiding Paul to proclaim what is true and good — namely the divine love of God in all of its glory and the call to Christians to live this same self-giving love. My favorite part of the passage, which continues to challenge and inspire me as a priest and pastor, is that love “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

Divine love is the foundation of all the good gifts God gives us. The first gift God gives us is the gift of life —having been created in his image and likeness. In the first reading Jeremiah proclaims: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born, I dedicated you, a prophet to the nations I appointed you.”

The gift of life itself and its attendant dignity must be the foundation for a just and well-ordered society and can never be conditional or negotiable for Christians.

The ultimate gift that Christ gives humanity is the gift of salvation and eternal life. The Catholic Church teaches that the eternal soul is created immediately at conception, consistent with our eternal goal of beatitude. Again, God desires our salvation because God loves us. The primacy of love abounds throughout Scripture. The Gospel for this Sunday communicates that Christ’s mission and its animating love are truly universal — it reaches all people, it goes to the ends of the earth. Because original sin manifests itself in exclusion and division, it should not be surprising that those hearing his words move quickly from amazement at his gracious words to wanting to hurl Jesus down headlong from the brow of the hill.

What import does the primacy of divine love have for Christian disciples? When elected pope, Benedict XVI said that he wanted to get back to the basics of the Catholic faith. His fist encyclical, “God is Love,” was promulgated on Christmas Day 2005. It is an extraordinary meditation on the divine love of God and its correlation to Christian faith. In a recently published book that Archbishop Bernard Hebda gave priests of the archdiocese, Cardinal Raniero Cantalamessa, a Capuchin Franciscan friar and preacher of the papal household, says (in part quoting Henri de Lubac), “‘It has been written that the revelation of God as love overturns all that the world had conceived of the Divinity.’ Theology and exegesis is still far, I believe, from having dealt with all the consequences of this.”

Given the truth of Scripture that God is love and that love holds a position of primacy in the Christian life, the corresponding question for Christians is: How we are doing in allowing God’s grace to cultivate our hearts after the heart of Christ? Priests and Catholics spend so much time in our heads or seeking comfort amid the challenges of the modern world. If love holds primacy in Christ’s divine life, shouldn’t the heart hold primacy in our lives of faith? To follow Christ means to love like Christ.

Father Griffith is pastor of Our Lady of Lourdes in Minneapolis and liaison for restorative justice and healing for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. He also serves as the Wenger Family Fellow of Law at the University of St. Thomas School of Law, where he teaches courses in Catholic social teaching, jurisprudence and restorative justice.

Sunday, Jan. 30
Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time