Love never fails

Recently, while getting up dated on family and events, I learned that my niece, Chrissie, who is a senior in high school, plans on studying nursing in college. I was pleased to hear of her interest in nursing.

I lived near Chrissie most of her first nine years of life. I lived about ten miles from my sister and her husband, Chrissie's parents, when I lived in the Bay area, so got to know Chrissie pretty well. Then they moved to Atlanta, and I moved to Portland about the same time. So, it has been nine years since then, and I haven't been as close in proximity to my niece to see changes going on in her life. She is growing up and looking at her future, which appears to be calling her to the profession of nursing. She is moving from teen to young adult, and trying to figure out what she wants to be, what she wants to do with her life. Though nursing would be her profession, I see her choice, as a Christian, as her call, her path to love. I imagine she will one day marry, and love her spouse, too, of course. But, I see her call to love unfolding in her desire to study nursing. If you have ever been under the care of a nurse, you know that their skill and presence are significant in the healing process. When I think of my niece, and learn of here desire to be a nurse, I see the maturing of love.

I share this as I reflect on today's readings from St. Paul on love. Is the command to love the call and vocation of every Christian, however that love is shown? I believe so. Paul speaks of the maturing of love when he writes, “...when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.” Love is a sign that one has passed from “childish things” to a more mature way of living, seeking love's perfection. A mature, Christian love is the love of Christ. But this love takes time to find its expression, its adultness, its self-emptying, its fullness. It is what we strive towards, though it may take a life-time.

I am encouraged to hear of my nieces plans to study nursing, especially as a work for helping people heal. The call to a mature love seems to have awakened a desire in her. All of us discern the path to a mature love, the love of which St. Paul writes, a love that for us as Christians is the love of Christ--a mature Christ.

We strive to be faithful in love. To love means to be faithful to who we are, who we were made to be. But to do that we need to remember from where we have come, or rather, from whom we have come. We reflect on the words of the prophet Jeremiah in today's first reading. “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, before you were born I dedicated you...” These are words that convey a profound intimacy we share with God, the One who knows us better than we know ourselves. In every person the mystery of the divine rests. Our love points to this mystery, a sign of God's presence.

As a faith community, we devote ourselves to Jesus' teaching to love. Whether we are nurses, painters, teachers, or accountants, all are called to love, with patience and kindness as St. Paul teaches, that God's presence might be made known. We seek to live a mature love, a mature faith, witnessed in our service to the poor and suffering. St. Paul reassures us about our calling and mission. “Love never fails.”