Interesting, Jesus gives us peace as a gift. “Peace I give you, my peace I leave with you.”
He gives us joy as a gift (I have told you these things so that my joy may be in you, and your joy may be full.)
The spectacular gifts are just that, gifts. Tongues, healing, prophecy, teaching, leading.
But the most excellent way, the one thing we are commanded to do, is just that —a command. It is how we are to behave.
And that is LOVE.
What a right-brain word. And so Paul, who I think is both right and left-brained, spells it out for the left-brained.
Love is
Patient
kind
it does not envy
it does not boast
it is not proud
it is not rude
it is not self-seeking
it is not easily angered
it keeps no record of wrongs.
It does not delight in evil
but rejoices in the truth.
Oh Jesus, I read this, and feel overwhelmed.
How does one develop this love. Two ways.
One schools oneself (in the workshop of family, first of all) to be patient, and kind, not proud, not rude, not self-seeking, not easily angered, forgiving.
And then, as with anything in the kingdom, we ask for the spirit of love.
Romans 5. The love of God is shed into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.
So to ask for the Holy Spirit, a prayer Jesus tells us is always answered, is to ask for love.
Also, once the root of the Holy Spirit is firmly planted in our hearts, love is an inevitable fruit.
Come Holy Spirit
Read my new memoir: Rosaries, Reading, Secrets: A Catholic Childhood in India (US) or UK.
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