Earthly Acts of Spiritual Love
‘Love bears all things,
believes all things,
hopes all things,
endures all things.’ (1 Cor. 13:7)
If everything we have known from personal experience and from knowledge of history tells us that all human lives are entwined with suffering, then why are we so surprised by the persistent presence of that pain, and why do we expect, even demand that it go away?
We have within our deepest hearts a hidden and vague knowledge that the way the world is now is not how it once was, nor how it ought to be. That secret knowledge stirs conflict within us.
As a psychotherapist working in medical settings, many of my clients experience suffering due to debilitating diseases, disabling conditions, chronic mental illnesses, substance use disorders, and, too often, the gradual erosion of close personal and family relationships. Psychotherapy can help foster fortitude and resilience in contending with all the things that can afflict a client. But the need for fortitude and resilience is not limited to persons in
psychotherapy. All persons experience loss, adversity, injustice, and painful events in life. How could it be anything else, considering we journey through a fallen world of sin, where sickness and death beset everyone?
Our modern inclination is to think of the presence of pain as a mistake, as something to blame someone else for, as something that can and should always be removed or remedied. Many of the difficulties of daily life can and ought to be corrected, and of course, we should strive to resolve our problems and give aid and comfort others who suffer. But the existence of pain represents more than simple error or misunderstanding. Some pain can be alleviated, and yet, sometimes pain must be borne – because it is an unavoidable element of life in a fallen world, not because we are morbid or weak or masochistic.
In the beginning, God and the human person walked together in harmony. Yet, since the cataclysmic events in Eden, we are heavily hampered by hardship. The entire story of the Bible is the tale of how God has responded to the consequences of what occurred in Eden. The Bible would not exist if Adam and Eve had not fallen. All of sacred Scripture relates the story of God’s actions to guide and rescue his children who are dwelling in darkness
and shadowed by death.
Jesus took upon himself the abominable scope of pain in this sin-filled world, to show us how to bear it, while still keeping faith beyond sight, while simultaneously bearing with every other person compassionately, because they, like ourselves, are caught in this web of painful sin-tainted darkness,
and we are each on the way in search of His kingdom. Some might say, “Why doesn’t God bring this messed up world to an end, and just sweep
away all the pain and bring lasting joy in its place? If He really was good, that’s what he would do now!”
But, when were you hoping for him to replace His plan with yours? His timing with yours? Sometime long ago, before you were born, perhaps? Or before your children, or grandchildren, or great, great grandchildren have had the chance to come into this world? Do you know what part the people yet to be born might play in His greater plan? Maybe we can shoulder the situation as it is and strive to do our part to bring goodness into the world.
God pointed out to St. Paul that humble and courageous acts of faith and love will light the path of our feet through the rubble and the trouble of life.
In his first letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul shines a light on deeper dimensions of love. He surprises his readers with the suggestion that it is love that bears, believes, hopes, and endures all of the challenging things of life on earth. Quite often, love is considered to be movements of emotions, yet St. Paul shows how love engages the activities of will. Through all the hard and the cold and the unfair and unknown things of this life, it is these willful acts
of love that will guide our way.
Bearing, believing, hoping, and enduring are not simply aspects of love. They are the key actions of love. Yet these particular acts of love are limited to our time on earth and are not elements of how love will be known in heaven. One will no longer need to bear or to endure pain, anguish, or injustice in heaven, because those things don’t exist there. One will not need to believe in what is invisible, or to hope for what is beyond the known, because all the things hoped for and believed in will be fully known and revealed in heaven.
But here, now, while we still live in a body and are under the sway of concupiscence, we have available to us the essential tools of spiritual love: bearing, believing, hoping, and enduring. Jesus, and our blessed Mother, and the saints, have shown us by their example how to practice earthly acts of love.
copyright 2025 Tom Medlar
