The Greatest of These Is Love: Why Charity Crowns Every Virtue
"And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love" (1 Corinthians 13:13).
More Than a Wedding Reading
"Love is patient, love is kind" is read at countless weddings, but Saint Paul wrote it to a divided, quarreling church. It is not a greeting card. It is a challenge.
What Love Is
"Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful" (1 Corinthians 13:4–5). Try a test: put your own name in place of "love." Where do you fall short?
Why Love Is the Greatest
The Catechism calls charity the virtue "by which we love God above all things for his own sake, and our neighbor as ourselves for the love of God" (CCC 1822). Faith and hope belong to this life. In heaven, faith gives way to sight and hope is fulfilled. Love remains forever, because "God is love" (1 John 4:8).
The Form of Every Virtue
Without love, Paul says, even great gifts are "a noisy gong." Charity gives life to every other virtue. Discipline without love turns harsh. Knowledge without love turns proud.
Practicing Love
- Each morning, ask God to love through you today.
- Choose one person who is hard to love, and do one kind thing for them.
- Each night, read 1 Corinthians 13:4–7 as your examination of conscience.
Every habit, every prayer, every rep you put in is meant to make you better at one thing: love.