Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

              “Love is patient. Love is kind. Love never fails.” 1 Cor. 13: 10

Here’s a question for you. What do the following letters stand for?

“GTG?” “BRB?” “ROFL?” “LOL?”

If you’ve been involved in sending text messages, you’ll know instantly what they mean. If not, “WFI”… “wait for it.”

In a recent radio interview, Adam Gropnik, a writer for the New Yorker magazine, told a compelling story. He began by asserting that he was beginning to believe that ordinary, day to day conversation has been replaced. 

Gropnik said he had discovered that the best way to keep in touch with his 12-year-old son was to send text messages back and forth and then proceeded to describe how he happened upon this breakthrough discovery.

The two of them, he reported, were sitting next to each other in their living room while watching a hockey game on television. Almost inadvertently, they began sending text messages back and forth – again, while sitting right next to each other!

What delighted Gropnik is that, in the process, his son taught his dad the different abbreviations: “GTG” for “got to go” … “BRB” for “be right back” … “ROFL” for “rolling on floor laughing.” But before his son could go any further, Gropnik excitedly informed him that he already knew the meaning of “LOL.”:

It means, Gropnik proudly declared, “Lots of love.”

Wrong, he was informed. It means “laughing out loud.”

Gropnik acknowledged he was embarrassed, but, as he explained, even miscommunication can help bridge the gap between father and son. Ever since then, Gropnik happily reported, they end each day with those same three letters: “LOL.” Laughing out loud. And, of course, lots of love.

Let’s be honest, though. Understanding the language of love – how to speak it, how to give it, how to receive it – has been problematic for people of all ages and all places. It certainly was in St. Paul’s era, as today’s second reading pointedly  reminds us.

This passage from St. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians is an all-time classic, one of the most beautiful descriptions of love ever written.  So much so, that it’s printed on countless greeting cards and read regularly at weddings. It’s even been used at funerals –perhaps most famously at the memorial for Princess Diana, where it was read by England’s Prime Minister, Tony Blair.

However, the reading has become so popular a citation that it is often misunderstood, and misinterpreted. The fact is St. Paul wasn’t writing about marriage, or romance, or the kind of “love” we hear sung about in much of our popular music. Romance and marital love were the furthest thing from his mind.

In the mid-50’s, when Paul wrote this letter, the church in Corinth was a mess. It was experiencing all kinds of feuds and factions. The church was so young and new in its understanding of itself that there were dissensions and disagreements about practically everything.

As usual when human beings are involved in starting something new, there were those who saw themselves to be more important than others; there were those who believed they alone had full understanding of the truth; and there were those who wanted to be considered more holy, more true to Jesus’ original teaching, and more knowledgeable as to what would be most pleasing to God.

And it was these circumstances that motivated Paul to write this legendary letter to the Corinthians. He wanted them to get their priorities straight. He wanted them to see that everyone contributes, everyone brings particular gifts, and everyone is an equally important part of the whole body. But what the entire community – the body of Christ – must understand, according to Paul, is that the ultimate charism, the decisive gift is love.

Love for one another – it alone is the adhesive, the glue that binds the entire community together.  

Listen to Paul again and note especially his repeated use of the word “all”: “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.”

Then he paints a picture of what true love looks like:

“Love is patient; love is kind. It is not jealous; it 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 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

Paul’s writing is as timely and practical today as it was 2000 years ago when he wrote it. It’s a scriptural passage so authoritative and wonderfully gorgeous we all need to ponder it, reflect on it  – again and again.

This letter is written with so much passion and courage that, to this day, it challenges us; it centers us; it moves us; and it anchors us to what is real about ourselves, and what is most important in our connection with others. It’s a scriptural passage that binds the community together so that it truly becomes the body of Christ, the re-presentation, the en-fleshment of Christ in the world we live in.

For Jesus and for Paul, love is not about romance – that’s too transient. Love is not about feelings – they’re too momentary. Love is not about lace and flowers and beautiful poems –  lovely as they are.  

Instead, for Jesus and for Paul, love is about nails and thorns and a cross. It’s about sacrificing my own needs and desires for the on-going hard work that will transform us into people of service and generosity and mercy. It’s about dying to my ego for the sake of rising to something bigger, more permanent, and far more fulfilling.  

“Love is patient. Love is kind. Love never fails.”

LOL. Lots Of Love.

St. Paul would back that meaning of this modern abbreviation all the way!

Ted Wolgamot, Psy.D.

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1/31/19