February 19

When love must wound love

“Let the righteous smite me; it shall be a kindness” (Psa. 141:5).
“Faithful are the wounds of a friend” (Prov. 27:6).

We must never take a one-sided idea of love. Its modes of expression are as many and varied as the needs which call it forth. We loudly acclaim the love that will forget self, pouring out its very blood in deeds of mercy to the stricken and destitute. That love, too, enthralls us, that will rise to a single act of sacrificial devotion in the hour of need. But where can we place that love that faces misunderstanding and malice, when with the knife of truth, as St. Paul aptly expresses it—“speaking the truth in love”—it wounds to heal? The greatest evidence that our motive was only of love is that if we must wound love for its highest need, we suffer equally with the wounded.

 Also, that it is not an impetuous outburst of a moment, but a task to which we have given much prayer, Bible study, and reflection.

It takes great love to stir the human heart
To live beyond the others and apart.
A love that is not shallow, is not small,
Is not for one or two, but for them all.
Love that can wound love for its higher need;
Love that can leave love, though the heart may bleed;
Love that can lose love, family and friend,
Yet steadfastly live, loving, to the end.
A love that asks no answer, that can live
Moved by one burning, deathless force—to give.
Love, strength, and courage; courage, strength, and love:
The heroes of all time are built thereof.
—Charlotte Perkins Stetson.

Holy love is a consuming fire for evil. It strikes with sorrow, and what it strikes it breaks, but breaks to save. The anathemas against the Pharisee proceed from the same heart as the Beatitudes.
—Dr. Pressensé.

There is often severity in kindness, often kindness in severity.
—H. S. Brown.

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