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Reflecting Valentine’s Day

Not so long ago, I looked forward to Valentine’s Day with a lot of enthusiasm. I was young and naive. I anticipated presents, being wined, dined and swept off my feet, if only for a day. Now that I’m a little older (still very young!), I have come to realise that the 14th of February is just a day that has been over-commercialised. We, the unsuspecting public, are conned into making purchases; flowers, gifts (big and small), confectionery and meals without really reflecting on the meaning of the day and the meaning of love. Isn’t it really just one big marketing gimmick?

As Tuesday rolls around and a lot of you prepare to paint the town red in celebration of your love, may you also take to heart some of the important characteristics of love as outlined in 1 Corinthians verse 13, which is personally one of my favourite chapters in the Bible.

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. 2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned,[a] but have not love, it profits me nothing.

4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part. 10 But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.

11 When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. 12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.

13 And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

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