"If I speak in the tongues of angels and of men, but I do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I can prophesy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so that I can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away everything I own, and if I give over my body in order to boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind, it is not envious. Love does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not selfish, it is not easily angered or resentful. It is not glad of injustice, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails.
But where there are prophecies, they will be set aside; if there is speaking in tongues, it will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be set aside. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part, but when what is perfect comes, the temporary will be set aside.
When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. But when I became an adult, I set aside childish ways. For now we see in a mirror indirectly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, just as I have been fully known.
And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love."
1 Corinthians 13
"The blessed John the Evangelist lived in Ephesus until extreme old age. His disciples could barely carry him to church and he could not muster the voice to speak many words. During individual gatherings he usually said nothing but, 'Little children, love one another.'
The disciples and brothers in attendance, annoyed because they always heard the same words, finally said, 'Teacher, why do you always say this?' He replied with a line worthy of John: 'Because it is the Lord's commandment, and if it alone is kept, it is sufficient.'"
Jerome, Commentary on Galatians, 4th century
"God beholds you. He calls you by your name. He sees you and understands you as He made you. He knows what is in you, all your peculiar feelings and thoughts, your dispositions and likings, your strengths and your weaknesses. He views you in your day of rejoicing and in your day of sorrow. He sympathizes in your hopes and your temptations. He interests Himself in all your anxieties and remembrances, all the risings and fallings of your spirit. He encompasses you round and bears you in His arms.
He notes your very countenance, whether smiling or in tears. He looks tenderly upon you. He hears your voice, the beating of your heart, and your very breathing. You do not love yourself better than He loves you. You cannot shrink from pain more than He dislikes your bearing it; and if He puts it on you, it is as you would put it on yourself, if you would be wise, for a greater good afterwards."
John Henry Newman
"Holiness consists simply in doing God's will, and being just what God wants us to be. Our Lord does not look so much at the greatness of our actions, or even at their difficulty, but at the love with which we do them. Without love deeds, even the greatest, count as nothing. Our Lord's love shines forth as much in the simplest of souls as it does in the most highly gifted, as long as there is no refusal of His grace."
Thérèse Martin de Lisieux
"In the Incarnation the whole human race recovers the dignity of the
image of God. Thereafter, any attack, even on the least of men, is an
attack on Christ, who took on the form of man, and in His own Person
restored the image of God in all. Through our relationship with the
Incarnation we recover our true humanity, and at the same time are
delivered from that perverse individualism which is the consequence of
sin, and recover our familiarity with all mankind."
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
"And we have come to know and to trust the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God in them."
1 John 4:16-17
