***
I used to volunteer at a nursing home in Totowa, run by the Little Sisters of the Poor.
One Sunday I heard a story from a nurse about a couple – John and Mary – who were living there.
They’d been married for more than 60 years, but had to live on separate floors as Mary was suffering from dementia and could become aggressive at times.
Nevertheless, every morning John went upstairs to brush her hair.
After a few weeks, one of the nurses finally stopped him and asked, “John, why do you keep brushing your wife’s hair? She doesn’t recognize you anymore…”
Putting the brush down, John turned around and said, “Because she deserves to look beautiful.”
***
Whose hair do we brush? How do we make others feel beautiful?
And, conversely, how aware are we of the ways that other people brush our hair?
***
Our second reading from Saint Paul addresses this very theme. It’s perhaps the most famous text ever written on love.
Usually it’s read at weddings, but Paul wasn’t writing to a couple; he was writing to the entire Christian community in Corinth, which was struggling to remain united.
You might say they put their brushes down and walked away from one another.
So Paul delivers the most impressive lesson on love.
He begins by listing eight behaviors they’re guilty of, behaviors that cannot make them happy in the end. They’ve been, “jealous, rude, quick-tempered, selfish,” and so on.
But true love, he says, isn’t self-centered; it’s other-centered. Without such love they’re no more than a “resounding gong or a clashing cymbal.”
Isn’t the same true for us?
Without love, “we have nothing…we are nothing.”
***
Just think of John and Mary.
Even though Mary couldn’t remember his name, John still got up every morning and brushed his wife’s hair.
He worked through those silver knots and tangles, because he experienced Saint Paul’s words first hand.
“Love is patient, love is kind, it is not jealous, it is not rude. It does not seek its own interests.”
Rather, “love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.”
***
How well do we love?
And, like John, how will we love another person today?