To love a person for his crown isn’t rare, but to love a person for his wounds is to realize what true love is all about. – Jocelyn Soriano
It is not great matter when we love a person for his beauty and for all the wonderful things we can see in him. Such a love pleases us and makes us glad. And many times, what we feel for that person may seem so strong we think we have already learned the depths of a true and lasting love.
All such things enable us to care for another person other than ourselves. It is no longer our own beauty we see but that of another. It is no longer just our own good that matters, but that of our beloved one.
But all these are but the surface of the kind of love to which our souls are capable of. If we really desire to reach the depths of it, we must learn to love not only our beloved’s strengths but his weaknesses as well. We must cherish not only his crown, but his wounds.
It is only when we are able to love a person at his worse that we can draw upon the very greatness of the love we seek to have. For it is here that we care about not only our own happiness or pleasure, but the good and wholeness of the one we love. Herein only can we love without condition, without any trace of selfishness, without measure, without fear, and without end.
He had no majestic bearing to catch our eye, no beauty to draw us to him. He was spurned and avoided by men, a man of suffering, knowing pain, Like one from whom you turn your face, spurned, and we held him in no esteem. – Isaiah 53, NABRE
The thing about hope is that it’s a positive force that shines the most when it’s dark. When everything’s going well, we hardly notice it’s there. But when things go against us, when our dreams fade and when we see no immediate reprieve from our troubles, that’s when hope does its best work for us.
"Where Hope Can Be Found"