The Checklist

Lately, when I have enough free time, I find myself hearing mass during my lunch hour. Maybe it’s true what they say. People find Him especially when they’re in deep in sh*t. Well, those are not the exact words. Something more elegant sounding. But you get my drift. Besides, I don’t think there’s any indignity in admitting that I need help of a higher nature. Ultimate level of appeal, so to speak.

During weekdays, there’s a 12.15 mass at the EDSA Shrine. This is what I rush off to catch. I take an FX and walk the length of Galleria. I usually sit at the center-most back pew. I find peace in not being with anyone, not knowing anyone there.

The first reading today is one of my favorite chapters in the Bible - which I’m sure also a lot of people love. First Corinthians Chapter 13. Apart from its profound meaning, I like it a lot because it is well-written. Expressive. Succinct. Elegant. I’m sure even Strunk and White will commend St. Paul.

Maybe a lot of people think love is anything they wish it to be. I believe this chapter is the definitive checklist. When others ask me if what they’re feeling is love (you’d be surprised to know how many people volunteer this kind of personal information to me) – I just go back to this chapter. Is it patient? Kind? Jealous? Righteous? …

You’d be surprised to know how many people realize what they thought was love is actually heavily disguised pride. Or worse, selfishness. Ok, extreme example: Just think of any soap opera villain who is obsessed with the protagonist. Is that love? I think not.

I expect dissents, of course. But this is my opinion, and last I checked, it’s still my blog. And I run the risk of being thought of as a pedant or a prude. Sheesh, I suddenly feel like I’m ostracizing everyone. I’m just saying, it is a big deal. Love. Not just the romantic variety. Parental, platonic, patriotic – whichever. We should not just say it because it’s… cinematic. Heaven knows how much Hollywood has ruined our perception on things.

But that’s another story.

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I Corinthians 13:1-13

"If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have 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 do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

"Love is patient; love is kind; love 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 rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

"Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love."