In case you haven’t met her yet, let me introduce you to one of our fabulous new bloggers at Patheos, The Anchoress (Elizabeth Scalia). Her posts are passionate, touching, humorous and always grounded in her life as a person of faith. They often leave me laughing out loud, or teary-eyed. She also happens to be the Managing Editor of our Catholic Portal, where she is overseeing a stellar group of writers and columnists on all things Catholic.
Today’s post struck me as especially beautiful and relevant on this day we celebrate the embodied love of Martin Luther King Jr. Scalia opens the post with the touching story of Congresswoman Gabrielle Gifford’s first actions after recovering from a bullet wound to the head – giving her husband a 10-minute neck rub – and then moves into a moving discussion of love, and our call to love even in the worst of times:
“This is what love calls us to: to reach outside of ourselves, beyond our own interests and our own pains, in order to succor another – no matter what kind of shape we’re in, no matter if our world has been upended.
Doubtless Mark Kelly received not only heartful consolation but strength, reassurance, and genuine comfort and relief by his wife’s ministrations and that was incredibly important for him; doubtless it was important to Gabby, too, to know that she could offer this to him; we are never more empowered than when we are demonstrating our capacity to love, and when we allow love to move us through and beyond our greatest challenges.
No matter what is going on in the world, our first responsibility is always to that love, because it is the seat of Wisdom; it is where God resides. If we step away from love–not matter how justified we might feel in doing so–we have moved away from God.”
“Love as the seat of Wisdom” is a lovely image to carry around today. Check out the rest of her post here. You’ll be glad you did.
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