How it is that Love is The Greatest -or- What it Really Means to Say 'I love you'

An Abstract, and Therefore Paltry, Discourse on Love

The correlate of faith is expectancy.  In faith, we have expectations.  We expect God to be present in the Sacraments, and when we call on God in prayer and praise.  We expect God to be present, holding us, in the midst of sorrow or trauma or grief.  God’s promises are the basis of this expectation.  And we wait, in faith, for these promises to come true.  We are sure and certain in this faith, because God always keeps promises.  But we are still expectant because God’s presence is not always known immediately.  God’s nature is to be veiled in secrecy; God is elusive.  Just as we know not whence the wind blows, so too is the Spirit of the Lord.  And so, from our perspective, we wait in the realm of possibility...expectant in faith.

Beyond the expectancy of faith lies hope.  The correlate of hope is conviction.  In hope, we expect nothing because we are past the point of possibility.  Hope is on the far side of despair.  Think of the one who faces death.  Think of the one who sees the end of some thing, and feels its inevitability.  Hope stands in the flood, as time rolls forward.  Not stands, but floats as a ship.  It gets to the point that if we stand in expectancy, we will be dragged down under the water.  But hope is light.  It is not light-minded, but instead makes the soul, makes the person buoyant.  And the one who hopes goes over the dam, and is not dashed upon it.  And the person continues on the other side of the end, or on the other side of death.  Hope brings us there, to the realm of new possibility when possibilities have run out.  The one who hopes is not affected by categories such as failure and victory (she or he cannot put anything in life into those categories anymore...although there are precious few other words to use).  And so we say that the one who loses, has won--in hope.  Hope deals in what is more, what is beyond.  Hope gives life after death.  Hope gives the second chance, and the third...it renews all things, simply by giving up on the desire (the expectancy) to attain, to succeed, to taste victory.

Hope, then, is a paradox.  It is not idealism, since hope understands the futility of that.  Hope does not expect the possibility.  But in complete trust, it rests in the certitude that whatever is on the far side, that whatever else it is, it is life...and it is good.  Hope is the continuation of faith after that which was expected never materialized.  Hope is, if you will, the reincarnation of faith, of the expectancy of faith.  Hope gives us bold confidence when everything around us screams: “Turn back.”  “This way lies futility.”  Hope makes us grateful for what is.  In hope is the assurance that tomorrow will be.  The phrase “hope beyond all hope” is ridiculous.  It is ridiculous not because it is not true or descriptive, but ridiculous because hope is always beyond itself.  All hope is beyond hope, and not just because what we usually mean by the second “hope” is faith, or beyond expectation.  But in saying such a phrase, we point to the paradox of hope, that it always exceeds even itself (along with doubt, faith and despair).  

“And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.”

1 Corinthians 13:13

And last is love.
Love has no correlation.  
Love is, itself, the correlation...correlative to all.
For this reason, it is the highest and most perfect.

Hope carries us past the unexpected actuality of life, and yet in hope we still come to expect something.  It is an expectation, not beyond hope, but beyond faith.  For our faith was destroyed by...what?  Call it fate, perhaps, or simply life.  

Hope gives a new life to expectancy.  But love...ah, love...love requires nothing more.  Love is complete.  Love is beyond expectation.  Love is beyond hope.  “It does not insist on its own way....  It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love never ends...”  (1 Corinthians 13:5, 7).  I would like to focus on but one clause here: “...love believes all things....”  We must be particular about the meaning of “believe.”  The word has its root in the word “trust.”  So what does love trust, exactly?  Love does not trust possibility, since possibility is untrustworthy--which is why it requires faith.  Love does not trust what is not, does not trust what fails to come to pass--which is why it requires hope.  But love...but love...love simply is glad for what was and what is.  Love cares not for the future.  Love does not compare anything. Love simply exists now, and it exists eternally.  

What do I mean?  Love trusts that every goodbye is simply that: good.  Love does not look for more, but is satisfied.

When two people disagree, if there is love, then there is no need to persuade one or the other to have an agreement.  For in love, even the disparate abide together.  Love appreciates the difference.  Love appreciates the distance.  Love appreciates elusiveness...because there is trust, belief.

This is crucial, because God is, in God’s very nature, secret and elusive.  To love God is simply to trust.  Faith expects revelation.  Hope carries one through the times that revelation does not come, carries one to the next revelation.  Love is the revelation that never reveals.  Love is comfortable...no, love rejoices when God remains simply who God is.  Love rejoices when the other, the other person, remains just who he or she is--even and especially when in so doing, expectations are dashed and hopes are ended.

In love all things already abide.  It is the eternal end.  It is the unity that transcends division.  Loves allows us to simply abide in joy, never looking for something else, never looking for something more.

I have always hated the saying: “It is what it is.”  And now I fully understand why.  Ultimately, the statement indicates acceptance of the reality that has stymied faith and hope.  As though acceptance is enough!  Love is more than mere acceptance.  It allows us to love what is.

And in love we all abide.  God and us.  You and me.  And we together, just as we are.

Who understands such fine distinctions?  Perhaps no one.  Now that I write it, I don’t even know if I understand it.  But please remember, Dear Reader, that I do not presume to write with authority.  Since an authority must, at the very least, be expected to understand what she or he is teaching.  But I have no such illusions.  Instead, I write without authority.  And therefore, I write, sending what is written out to search...to seek for that one person, that one certain and special individual, who will apply what is read to their own situation.  The One who will find some understanding below the words.  To you, Dear One, to you I give the words and simply trust that between us, love abides--the greatest, the everlasting.  (Whatever that means.  Whatever that looks like.)  

“And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.”