Words are powerful elements, they can lift a person up or destroy them. Jesus understood this when He said it is not what a person eats that makes them unclean but what comes out of them. Our tongues can lie, slander and ruin a person.

In the past fifty years words have been created, as in Blog, their meanings changed, as in gay or bad and some have nearly disappeared. Rarely is the word washboard used unless someone has perfects abs.

One word that has remained constant is Hypocrite and no one wants that label attached to them. But I propose that perhaps it is time to strive to be a Hypocrite especially in matters of Love.

 Love is an overused word. We Love Pepperoni Pizza. We Love our new car. These of course are simply matters of hyperbole (hyper) in our language. We love our spouse and our children! That is until we can’t stand them and what they are doing!! To continue to say we love them makes us hypocrites, at least in the eyes of much of the world.

To often people confuse love with feelings. Feelings of love are warm and cuddly, we have pleasant butterflies in our stomach, we have passionate longings for our soul mate. Our stomachs ache when we are apart from them. Our days are filled with happiness when we are with them even if we are doing nothing together. To many, this is love.

As time passes and we grow use to each to other, the feelings fade. We neither feel happy or sad, we feel nothing at times. For many who reach this point they say the Love has Gone Out of Our Relationship. Some make the fatal mistake of thinking to continue in the relationship is hypocrisy because the days can be become a struggle to make the relationship work.

Relationships that reach this point are disposed of like archaic words. All that remains is memories of what use to be. The time has come to move forward to newer and better vistas hopefully to once again recapture that feeling of love.

The Holy Spirit helped the Apostle Paul define love. Love is Patient, Love is Kind, Love is Gentle. Love does NOT rejoice with wrong doing but Rejoices with the Truth. Love Bears all things, believes all things and hopes all things, Love NEVER FAILS!

 To St. James the Holy Spirit enlightened, Love without Good Works is Dead. No where does the Holy Spirit say anything about Love being a feeling.

True Love moves us to Act especially when we least feel like acting. Love gives Energy to the exhausted, Patience to the annoyed and Courage to the fearful. Love moves us to empty ourselves for the sake of the other especially when they are acting wrongly. Love will have us punish our child to help them learn even when the punishment hurts us more than them. For loves sake we undergo painful medical care and deny ourselves the Peace of Heaven because our work here on Earth is not yet complete.

We do what we don’t feel like doing and in the eyes of the world that makes us hypocrites. We keep our tongues still or force our tongues to choose the words carefully when we really want to unload. In the world’s eyes we are hypocrites. But we really are practicing Love at these moments, in the manner that Christ did as He bore His cross. And did He not tell all of us to pick up our cross daily and walk with Him?

So in a world with changing definitions one word still means the same thing even if the world does not comprehend that fact. Our world is suffering the effects of broken relationships because too many fail to comprehend the true meaning and cost of the word Love.

For those of us who want to be followers of Jesus, we must train to be Faithful Hypocrites so our love will be Alive and NOT Dead!

Find more work from Dennis McGeehan at Warrior’s World Dad. Dennis writes from Pennsylvania, and is available for speaking at your next store or parish event.