(UNDATED) President Obama’s inaugural address might not have been one for the ages. But it certainly was the right one for the moment.

Somber, sober and almost stern, our new president placed a mantle before the nation and gave us a gentle, but clear, kick in the collective pants.

“Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America,” he said. “What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility-a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character than giving our all to a difficult task.”

“We remain a young nation,” Obama said, “but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things.”

There, he was quoting from 1 Corinthians 13:11, St. Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth, Greece.

I was struck by the implications of this choice of Scripture.

Most people, if they are familiar with this particular Bible passage at all, probably have heard it read at a wedding. This is the “Love is patient, love is kind …” section that is so well known to so many. But Paul continues:

“When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

When St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, he began by addressing their problems. The church was beset by infighting and divisions, and threatened by immoral influences from the surrounding community.

Corinth was a young city and the church there was a young church, just as we are a young nation. Teenagers, if you will.

St. Paul delivered a stern, yet loving, reproach to the Corinthians, telling them, essentially, to quit their bickering, grow up and get busy with what they were called to do in the first place: Love.

Love one another. Love their neighbors. Be God’s love in the world. Be love with arms and legs-feeding the poor, comforting the sick, visiting the prisoners, sheltering the homeless.

How interesting that the Bible passage about growing up and putting away childish things (in the name of love) was chosen by the young team of our 47-year-old president and his 27-year-old chief speechwriter, Jon Favreau.

I wonder whether they chose the passage from 1 Corinthians in part to evoke another letter written by St. Paul. In 1 Timothy, Paul writes to his young friend Timothy, an evangelist in the city of Ephesus in Asia Minor.

“Do not let anyone look down on you because you are young,” St. Paul told Timothy, “but be an example for other believers in your speech, behavior, love, faithfulness, and purity.”

Favreau also helped Obama craft his famous victory speech after the Iowa caucuses where he said, in part:

“Years from now,” he said, “you’ll look back and you’ll say that this was the moment, this was the place where America remembered what it means to hope. … Hope is the bedrock of this nation. The belief that our destiny will not be written for us, but by us, by all those men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is, who have the courage to remake the world as it should be.”

In his timely inauguration speech, Obama gave us marching orders anchored in a conspiracy of hope and a love that never fails.

This is it, kids. The big show.

This is when we put our American ideals into action.

Today, our ideology meets reality.

So let’s roll up our sleeves and get to work.

(Cathleen Falsani is the author of the new book “Sin Boldly: A Field Guide for Grace.”)

KRE/DSB END FALSANI