The Fullness of Life
Love: the more excellent way
When St. Paul was teaching the church assembly of Corinth, he pointed out that while there are different gifts or charisms and different callings or ministries, there is but One Body. And the people of God, with complementary functions in the Church, form this One Body of Christ (Cf. 1 Cor. 12).
He went on to explain that aside from the gifts of teaching, healing, working of miracles, or the gift of speaking in different tongues, there is actually a more excellent way, which is Love.
To the astonishment of the faithful at Corinth, St. Paul even proclaimed that even if he were to speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, he would just be a noisy gong or a changing cymbal. And if he had prophetic powers, and understood all mysteries and all knowledge, or had the faith to move mountains but had no love, he would be nothing.
He continued, "If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body to be burned, but do not have love, I gain nothing" (1 Cor. 13:3).
"Love," he said, "is patient; it is kind; it is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoice in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things" (ibid. 13:4-7).
He finally concluded that while faith, hope and love are the only three that remains, yet, "the greatest of these," he said, "is love."
This reminds me of a great modern saint who was canonized on October 10, 1982 as a "martyr of Love," St. Maximilian Kolbe. The Polish priest who offered his life to save a co-prisoner in the Nazi death camp of Auschwitz.