Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
JEREMIAH 1:4-19
In the days of King Josiah, the word of the Lord came to me:
“Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you,
before you were born, I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet to the nations.
Now, gird up your loins, stand up and tell them all that I command you.
Do not be afraid of them, or I will make you cower before them.
Today, I make you a fortified city,
an iron pillar, a bronze wall against the whole land;
against the kings of Judah, its princes,
against its priests and the people of the land.
They will fight against you but will not overcome you,
for I am with you to deliver you.
Declares the Lord.”
This is the beginning of the book. It is “the vocation of the Prophet.” Jeremiah is the most spectacular case of a “prophet by force.” A man of naturally gentle disposition, he is compelled by the Word of God to speak out violently against the wickedness of the people and their leaders, to announce the final disaster at the hands of the kings of Babylon. For this, he will be rejected, considered an enemy of the state, persecuted, tortured. His relationship with God is profound, personal, intimate, which gives him tremendous strength in the face of so many adversities.
1 CORINTHIANS 12:31 and 13:1-13
Earnestly desire the greater gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way. If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect; but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away.
When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood.
So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
This is one of the most famous passages of Saint Paul. In the previous Sundays, we have seen how, in relation to the dissensions among the Corinthians and the way they celebrated the Eucharist poorly, Paul spoke of the unity of the whole body, and the function of each one for the whole body. In today’s passage, he reaches the peak of this exposition: there is a basic charisma, love; this is the charisma of all, without which all the others have no value whatsoever.
We can distinguish two clear levels in this exposition: firstly, the description of love, its characteristics, so well achieved; but, above all, the theology of love, which links this text with the letters of John: it is about love being the definitive reality, the one that explains creation, liberation… the one that explains God, the one that will remain forever, when all that is provisional has ended.
In the Church, we have applied this text to human love, to marriage… and it is very good. But it is exciting to apply it to God: to recite that description of love – understanding, kind, not irritable, not keeping a record of wrongs, forgiving without limits, believing without limits – to the love that our Father has for us.
José Enrique Galarreta, S.J.