![\"\"](\"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/chaplaincy\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/159\/sites\/431\/2025\/02\/love-is-892x1024.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nSome of those comments echo Paul\u2019s famous chapter on love from his First Letter to the Corinthians:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nIf I speak in the tongues\u00a0of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.\u00a0If I have the gift of prophecy\u00a0and can fathom all mysteries\u00a0and all knowledge,\u00a0and if I have a faith\u00a0that can move mountains,\u00a0but do not have love, I am nothing.\u00a0If I give all I possess to the poor\u00a0and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,\u00a0but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient,\u00a0love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.\u00a0It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking,\u00a0it is not easily angered,\u00a0it keeps no record of wrongs.\u00a0Love does not delight in evil\u00a0but rejoices with the truth.\u00a0It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies,\u00a0they will cease; where there are tongues,\u00a0they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.\u00a0For we know in part\u00a0and we prophesy in part,\u00a0but when completeness comes,\u00a0what is in part disappears.\u00a0When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood\u00a0behind me.\u00a0For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror;\u00a0then we shall see face to face.\u00a0Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love.\u00a0But the greatest of these is love.<\/p>\n1 Corinthians 13<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\nThat reading is often chosen for weddings, but it isn\u2019t just about that sort of love. It comes in the middle of a letter to the church in Corinth, in Greece. People in the church were falling out – they were getting excited about their new spiritual gifts, but that led to them thinking they were better than each other. Paul explains that they are all like parts of a body – every part is important, even if it seems weak or embarrassing, and when one part suffers they all suffer. And then he says \u2018Now I will show you the most excellent way\u2019 and he then completely changes his approach, and writes this wonderful passage about love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Paul was someone who valued words, and writing, and knowledge – but all of this is nothing, he says, compared to love. Prophecy, faith, and even self sacrifice are worth nothing without love. Love is the one thing that really matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And in case his readers think this love is just a feeling he describes what this love is and isn\u2019t like. It doesn\u2019t do others down, it isn\u2019t always angry, it isn\u2019t envious or resentful. It is patient, kind, persevering, faithful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Love – as my whiteboard says – is a doing word. For me the central purpose of life is simply the giving and receiving of love. And this is where we find our fullest connection with God. As another of the New Testament letters says: \u2018God is love, and those who live in love live in God and God lives in them.\u2019 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I think this means that whatever the beliefs someone may have – whatever faith they belong to – where they are connected to love, where they are giving and receiving love in their lives, they are connected to God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The writer Kahlil Gibran says this: \u2018When you love you should not say, \u201cGod is in my heart,\u201d but rather\u2019 \u201cI am in the heart of God.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One other thing written on my whiteboard, right next to the red heart with \u2018Love is\u2026\u2019 written in it, was the word Jesus. I wasn\u2019t sure about that. I wanted everyone to feel free to write on the board, not think that because it was in the Chapel, it was just for the religious people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But for some of us, it is true that our way into a deeper connection with love is through our connection to Jesus. For us, love is seen above all in the self giving life, and death of Jesus – in the way Jesus treats people in need, seeing them fully, accepting them, showing them such care – and in the way Jesus changes the way we think about God, from a God of fearful power to a God of fearless love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You make like to spend some time reflecting, and then bringing your reflections to Jesus in prayer\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Where have you seen or experienced love in your life\u2026?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lord of love, for the love that we have seen, for the love that we have known, for the love that we have received, we bring you our thanks.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Where have you allowed God\u2019s love to flow through you\u2026?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Great Heart of our own heart, we thank you for the times when your love has reached out to others through us.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Where do you long for love to be known more, to be shown and shared, given and received?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lord of love, we long for your love to bring transformation in the world and in the lives of those we know. May we be part of the answer to our prayer.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nAmen.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
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Some of us remember the 1970 film Love Story, and its famous line: \u2018love means never having to say you\u2019re sorry\u2019. I don\u2019t actually agree with that. So what does […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":519,"featured_media":1592,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-reflections"],"blocksy_meta":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/chaplaincy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/chaplaincy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/chaplaincy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/chaplaincy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/519"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/chaplaincy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1589"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/chaplaincy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1589\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1593,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/chaplaincy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1589\/revisions\/1593"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/chaplaincy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/chaplaincy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/chaplaincy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/chaplaincy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}