Irritability...love is not

Opening Prayer, Speak O Lord, Your servant is listening.

Lectio: 1 Corinthians 13:5 Or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;

Meditatio: How often have you woken up irritable? Maybe someone said you got up on the wrong side of the bed. Maybe you didn't feel much like loving someone. It's usually when someone tells you to get over something like they believe it can easily happen. The word “easily” is here a gloss. The corresponding substantive (paroxusmos, whence our “paroxysm”) is used of the “sharp contention” between Paul and Barnabas (Acts 15:39). Love, when it is perfected, rises superior to all temptations to growing exasperated, although it may often be justly indignant. But, as St. Chrysostom says, “As a spark which falls into the sea hurts not the sea, but is itself extinguished, so an evil thing befalling a loving soul will be extinguished without disquietude.” (1)

Oratio: God, thank you for this lectio. Help me to remember that love is not irritable. Even when i am not interested in not being irritable.

Contemplatio: How can you not be irritable? What is one thing you can do help break the cycle of irritability?