Holy Nights
1 Corinthians 12:31- 13:13
Strive to make the best out of
the gifts of grace working together.
Yet, I will show the way that
is higher than all others.
If I speak out of the Spirit
with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, then my speaking
remains as sounding brass or tinkling cymbal. And if I had the gift of prophecy
and could speak of all the mysteries and could impart all knowledge and,
further, had the power of faith that removes mountains, yet am without love,
then I am nothing. And if I were to give away everything that is mine, and
lastly were to give away even my body for burning, yet am without love, then
all is in vain.
Love makes the soul great;
Love
fills the soul with healing goodness;
 |
| Iris Sullivan |
It
knows no boasting;
It does
not allow falseness;
Love
does not harm that which is decent.
It
drives out self-seeking.
Love
does not allow inner balance to be lost.
It does
not bear a grudge.
It does
not rejoice over injustice.
It
rejoices only in the truth.
Love
bears all things,
Is
always prepared to have faithful trust.
It may
hope for everything and is all-patient.
If love is truly present, it
cannot be lost. The gift of prophecy will one day be extinguished, the wonder
of languages cease, clairvoyant insight come to an end. Our insight is
incomplete, incomplete is our prophecy.
But one day the perfect must
come, the complete consecration – aim; then the time of the incomplete is over.
When I was still a child, I
spoke as a child, and I felt and thought as a child. When I became a man, I put
childish ways behind me.
Now we still see things in dark
outlines, as in a mirror. Some day we will see everything face to face. Now my
insight is incomplete, but then I shall stand in the stream of true insight, in
which recognizing and being recognized are one.
We find permanence that bears
all future within it in the exalted triad:
In
faith
In
hope,
And in
love.
But the greatest of these is love.
Holy Nights
January 2, 2021
1 Corinthians 12:31-13:13
Paul describes love as a soul’s way of being and acting.
He speaks of the loving soul’s open spaciousness, a soul
that is aligned with truth, balanced and patient. A loving soul foregoes
meanness and selflessly supports decency. In other words, a soul is filled with
love is full of goodwill. Jan de Kok
Love works as a healing force, both the love we receive, but
more importantly, the love we generate and give.
Love’s antitheses—spiteful envy, arrogance, and selfishness—bespeak a soul whose will is ill, a soul in need of healing.
The mystery of the Act of Consecration of Man, the communion service, demonstrates the process of learning how to love.
First, we receive God’s love by listening, receiving a portion of the life of Christ in the Gospel. Then we undertake to make a real inward offering. We gather our purest thoughts, our most Christ-ened feelings, and our most energetic will, and we pour them into the chalice along with wine and water, offering them all to the Father as a chalice of healing.
Our modest, meager act of love toward Him is made strong and potent by Christ’s love joining ours. In Communion, the love we offered to the Father returns to us multiplied, as the gracious, peaceful love that Christ embodies in the bread and wine. It is His love that we take in, that enters us. We receive the healing medicine for our will’s illness.
This is an enactment, a kind of foreshadowing of what will
one day be fully realized. Right now, we can only enact love partially, in
outline, as in a mirror. But one day, we too will, in goodwill, work face to
face with the Master of Love, in Whom recognizing and being recognized are one.
