Love

Today the readings for Mass include the Letter to the Corinthians with the beautiful reading on love, 1 Cor 12: 31 - 1 Cor 4:13.

If you've ever been to a Christian wedding you've probably heard it. It reads beautifully. It is very hard to live out.

Today as I read it my mind kept going to the recent disillusioning story of Cardinal Mahoney and his role in keeping secret the actions of some abusive priests in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

I know that God is love and the life of Jesus was an outpouring of this love. I know to that we must not judge. But  the actions of some Church authorities in relation to the sexual abuse and rape of children are so contrary to the teachings and actions of Jesus that I have to express my sadness and disappointment.

My heart is broken again. My first realization of this type of approach to the abuse of children by priests was in 1995. The experience was like the death of a loved one. But you don't stop loving even when betrayed. One can work against this evil while within the Church. The most incredible witness I've experienced to an active love of Christ and the Church is among parents of abused children who continue to be practicing Catholics in spite of such a horrible experience. They are able to separate out the evil actions of flawed, sick people from what is essential to their faith. They have even gotten involved in helping others to heal from such experiences and in challenging Church authorities to act with integrity and to afford no tolerance to such behavior.

I listened this morning to Fr. Robert Barron sermon on Corinthians (Word on Fire). He says, quoting Thomas Aquinas "to love is to will the good of the other".

Living as a Catholic Sister means that my life needs to be centered in Christ and in the Catholic Church.  

":It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."
I hope and pray that we in the Church can continue to struggle against the evil and expedient actions of some in the Church. May the Blessed Trinity help us.

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, 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.