A reflection on 1 Corinthians 12:31-13:13 for Wednesday of the 24th Week in Ordinary Time.
There is something very beautiful about 1 Corinthians 13 when it is read at a wedding. “Love is patient, love is kind.” Everyone is dressed nicely, there are flowers, and people are sitting quietly.
No one is asking you for a snack while you are already holding three things. No one is crying because the wrong cup was used. No one has just announced that they need something for tomorrow that they have apparently known about for several days.
In that setting, patience sounds lovely.
At 6:47 p.m., it sounds more like a threat.
That is roughly the hour when I discover whether I actually believe St. Paul. “Love is patient.” Yes, Lord, but surely You did not mean during the part of the day when everyone is tired and hungry and suddenly incapable of locating shoes.
“Love is kind.” Of course. But what about when I have answered the same question four times and the fifth asking feels less like curiosity and more like a spiritual trial specifically designed for me? “Love is not quick-tempered.” Well. That one feels unnecessarily personal.
I think I sometimes imagine that Christian love will reveal itself in some grand moment of sacrifice. I picture courage, generosity, noble self-denial. I am prepared, in theory, to rise magnificently to the occasion.
Instead, God keeps giving me very small occasions: another interruption, another mess, another person who needs tenderness precisely when I feel least tender. Sometimes the invitation is simply to answer kindly, to stop myself from snapping, or perhaps just not to sigh quite so dramatically.
This is not the sort of holiness I would have designed for myself.
I would prefer something a little more impressive. But St. Paul will not let me turn love into a feeling or an aspiration. He gives it verbs: love bears, believes, hopes, endures, and is patient.
And patience, unfortunately for those of us who enjoy the idea of holiness more than the practice of it, can only be learned when something is actually testing our patience. I do not become patient by having a peaceful evening in which everyone behaves beautifully and nothing spills. I become patient by being given someone to be patient with.
That realization is both comforting and mildly annoying.
Motherhood has made this painfully concrete for me. Children have an astonishing ability to need things at inconvenient times, usually when I am already doing something else. But the same is true in marriage, friendship, parish life, and honestly any situation involving other human beings.
People interrupt our plans. They misunderstand us, move more slowly than we would like, forget things, and repeat themselves. They also seem strangely unaware when we have reached the edge of our patience and continue behaving as though our internal state is not, in fact, the central issue of the universe.
And into all of that, Christ says: Love.
Not because the irritation is imaginary, and not because exhaustion does not matter. Love does not mean we should never need rest, boundaries, or help. It means that the person in front of me is still a person to be loved, even when I am depleted.
Sometimes my first reaction is not patient or kind. Sometimes it is sharp. Sometimes I hear my own tone and immediately think, Well, that was deeply inspiring.
But I am learning that failure does not have to be the end of the moment. I can apologize, soften my voice, and begin again. There is a particular grace in realizing that Christian love is not proven by never failing; it is also revealed in returning, repenting, and trying again.
My children do not need a mother who floats serenely through the house reciting Scripture while everyone marvels at her virtue. That woman sounds exhausting anyway. They need a mother who loves them: a real one, who gets tired, who sometimes loses patience, who knows how to say, “I’m sorry,” and who keeps asking God to make her heart a little more like His.
And maybe that is what I find most hopeful about this reading. St. Paul does not say that love never gets tired. He says love endures.
There is a difference.
Endurance does not mean I never feel worn down. It means I keep returning to love, even after I have fallen short of it. Sometimes love looks heroic, sometimes it looks like sacrifice, and sometimes it looks like standing at the foot of the Cross.
And sometimes, at 6:47 p.m., it looks like answering one more question without acting as though I have been personally betrayed.
Lord, teach me to recognize those small moments for what they are: chances to learn how to love. And when I miss them, give me the humility to begin again.
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