“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Why can’t we love God and neighbor as we know we should? We pray a lot for the grace of fervent charity, meditate on the word of God, confess our sins regularly, and receive Holy Communion. So why do we still struggle to give ourselves to God and to others selflessly?
Maybe we should first pay greater attention to the quality of our self-love. When Jesus said to the scribe, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,”(Mk 12:31) He implies that we must love ourselves appropriately first before we can truly love God and others.
For us to have a healthy self-love, there are certain truths that we must believe deeply and personalize first.
Firstly, we must believe that we have goodness in us all the time.
There is an inherent goodness in us that does not depend on our virtues or vices. It does not depend on our achievements or conditions in life. It also has nothing to do with the opinions of others about us or how they treat us. Nothing can take away this goodness that we have in us.
Secondly, this goodness is a gift of God’s love for us.
We are not the source of this goodness. We did not inherit it from our parents or get it in our education or upbringing. We have this goodness in us because we are created in the image and likeness of God. God constantly communicates this goodness to us out of His love for us and He sustains this goodness in us. Apart from God’s love, we have no goodness in ourselves to reflect to others.
Thirdly, this goodness is not perfect.
Unlike the perfect goodness in God, our own goodness is not perfect. This goodness remains in us even as we struggle with sin and selfishness in our lives. Our sins and failures do not destroy this goodness. We can both grow and diminish in this goodness, becoming more or less perfect images of God.
Lastly, this goodness is meant to grow by actual acts of charity towards God and neighbors.
This goodness engages our freedom so that we freely mature in it through acts of self-giving love for God and for others. We become more perfectly images of God through loving actions.
Without this healthy self-love, we cannot show true for love God by keeping all His commandments all the time, as Moses commanded, “Fear the Lord, your Lord, and keep, throughout the days of your life, all His statutes and commandments which I enjoin on you.”(Dt 6:2) Neither can we show love for our neighbors through selfless service.
Everything begins with this healthy self-love. Without it, we cannot be patient with ourselves and others. We cannot forgive others and ourselves. We cannot sacrifice anything or take any risk out of love for God or others. We ignore God’s commandments because, enslaved by our emotions, we will only do things that make us feel good. We will easily get discouraged in our spiritual life and vocation. We will trust in ourselves so much that we ignore the grace of God.
Without healthy self-love, we cannot grow in our character because we cannot accept any criticism, correction, failure, or mistake. We cannot overcome temptations because our pride blocks the grace of God in us. We do not go deep in our ongoing conversion because we are too enamored of our perceived excellence. We cannot endure any suffering or trial in life.
For us to cultivate an appropriate self-love, we must first avoid the two extremes regarding self-love. We must first avoid the excessive self-love that has an exaggerated sense of personal goodness and sees our good as coming from self. We can pretend to be perfect already and thus lose our sense of need for God and others. Selfless service is impossible because we can see things as a personal right and not as a gift to be received and given freely. We just cannot contemplate God because we are too busy contemplating ourselves.
We must also avoid the extreme of attitude of self-hatred that does not see anything good in us. We condemn ourselves so much that we unknowingly give the devil a vacation because we are performing his duty of condemning us. We interpret all hardships as God punishing us for our sins. Such self-hatred and an excessive sense of unworthiness prevent us from freely accepting the gifts of love that God is offering.
In addition, we must also cultivate a sense of humble gratitude for the goodness that God has placed in us and the grace that He has given to us to reflect it to others. Unlike the Levitical priests who offered animals for their sins and the sins of the people, Jesus, the only high priest, “holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners, higher than the heavens,”(Heb 7:26) chose to offer Himself for our sins and to bring us into loving relationship with God. We can offer ourselves to God and others in love because Christ offered Himself for us.
Lastly, let us strive to grow in that goodness by charity. While acknowledging the goodness in us from God, we also accept that we have areas of growth to address. Jesus said to the scribe who understood the need for healthy self-love, and love for God and neighbors, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” We too draw nearer to God when are grounded in the goodness we have from God while striving to grow in that goodness through charity.
The Eucharist remains the only locus of Christ’s eternal self-offering to the Father on this earth. Our Eucharistic Lord comes to us in each Mass for two reasons. First, to communicate to us a greater share in His own infinite goodness. Secondly, to give us the graces that we need to grow in that goodness through loving God and neighbors.
By His grace, and a healthy and appropriate self-love, we too can love God and neighbors all the time.
Glory to Jesus!!! Honor to Mary!!!
Image credit: James Tissot, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
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About the author:
Fr. Nnamdi Moneme, OMV, is a Roman Catholic priest and religious of the Oblates of the Virgin Mary currently serving in the Philippines. He teaches theology and is a seminary formator for candidates to the priesthood and religious life. Father also gives Ignatian retreats and serves as spiritual director to many of the lay, religious, and clergy in the area.
He earned his first degree in Physics from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria. Ordained in 2009, he studied at St. John’s seminary, in Brighton, Massachusetts. Father has an STL/MA in Moral Theology from the University of Santo Tomas in Manila, Philippines.
Father Moneme blogs at https://toquenchhisthirst.wordpress.com/.
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