3/27/2019 LENTEN REFLECTION

Posted on Mar 28, 2019 by
[Jesus said to his disciples:
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.
I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.“] (Mt. 5:17)
“The fulfillment of the law is Love” (Rm. 13:10). Though simpler to recite than the hundreds of rabbinic laws, Jesus proposes a more difficult and excellent way (cf. 1Cor. 12:31).
According to St. Thomas Aquinas, Love is “willing the good of the other for the other’s sake”. That’s tough! True love has no hint of selfishness in it. Yikes!
Yet Jesus isn’t asking anything of us He Himself didn’t do on the cross, AND anything He isn’t doing in us now.
Take some time today and ask God about His love for you, and your love for Him and others.
Do I strive to love God and others as Jesus does?
(1 Corinthians 13:1-13)
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.