It was the usual very busy day at the accident and emergency department at the local hospital. An elderly man was brought in with a serious cut to his hand, caused by a kitchen knife, which a nurse diagnosed would need several stitches, when he was seen by a doctor. The longer he waited, the more agitated the man seemed to be and he kept asking the staff how much longer he would have to wait, as he needed to be somewhere. The nurses tried to calm him down, explaining that they were very busy but he would be seen as soon as possible. Eventually, he was seen by the casualty doctor, his wound received several stitches and he was passed over to a staff nurse for an injection and to have his wound bandaged. He seemed in such a hurry to get home that the young nurse asked him why he was so impatient to get away. He told her that he had to go to an old people’s home where his wife lived; he said that his wife suffered from Alzheimer’s disease and that he visited her every day and they had lunch together. As she bandaged his hand the nurse asked him if his wife would be worried if he arrived late. “No,” he replied “my wife doesn’t know who I am; it’s now five years since she last recognised me.” Surprised by this, the nurse asked him, “If she doesn’t know you, what’s the great need for you to be with her every day?” He smiled, caught her by the hand and said, “She doesn’t know who I am, but I still know who she is.”

Surely, this is the kind of love that Christ asks of all of us, true Christian loving. True love of another cannot be reduced to something physical or romantic; it is accepting everything about the other, what he or she has been, what they will be and what they can never be.