Paternoster rosary 4.1 - 1 Corinthians 13:4 - 5

With this passage we begin to pray "Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us". It can be interesting how the two parts of this passage of the prayer interlock, especially when we realise how little of our corporate liturgical prayer acknowleges explicitly the issue of forgiving others. So I find it may be that this passage and the following may remind me of things directly in my own relating to other people, or sometimes it reminds me of how I may have been treated or not by others. In the case of being reminded how I have been treated, I tend to take it that if something in someone else's behaviour raises my indignation, then I should be extra aware of the possibility that I am myself guilty of it and that the subconscious recognition and repudiation produces a desire to push it away and the behaviour of others becomes the lightening rod for my own inner conflict and guilt. A later passage in this round of readings asks us to look at that explicitly. Anyway to the actual passage.

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's interesting to use this charatcerisation of love as something to measure ourselves by. God is love and so, as people aspiring to imitate Christ, we need to measure ourselves by God's love. In a way each of these characterisations of love would be sufficient to reflect on, and it may be a strategy for regular prayer to visit one or two each time and so over time to cover them all.

What I often do is to see which of the characteristics draws me and to explore why; what am I being reminded of in my life and that becomes the matter that I hold in mind as I pray "Forgive us ....".

One other thing I occasionally reflect on as I consider these marks of love is that they are not prescriptive, that is to say that they are not necessarily invariable guides to action. For example, "Love does not insist on its own way" can be interpreted in such a way as to mean that we always give way to another person's opinion or ideas and never put forward our own. What I think we should take from it is that if we act lovingly we will not want the other person to be dominated by us. However, we should note that there may be times when acting lovingly, that is in the best interests of the other person[s] and for their welfare, love may require us to be tough with them, and insist on 'our' way because it is important that their way is not followed through. We could think of when to allow a child their own way with regard to bedtimes or sweet consumption would be not an act of love but of sentimental weakness, for example.
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