If I propose to write about the so-called double commandment of love, it is because I have discovered a third aspect of it, that is, the commandment of love is not double after all, but triple; this third aspect is understood, hidden, but it is there. The reason for this is that man is the measure of all things. Each one of us, as an individual, is the measure of all things. Our vision and understanding are always subjective; objectivity is the sum of many subjectivities.
Self-esteem or love of oneself is implicit in the second commandment. They say that the measure of love is to love without measure, but such love does not exist because whether we like it or not, we love the other, our neighbour, and the Other, our God, to the extent that we love ourselves. He who does not love himself, can hardly love his neighbour and God.
The entity closest to me is my own person with its flaws, virtues and vicissitudes; if I do not accept myself as I am, I will find it hard to accept the neighbour as he is, or even God as He is. The image that I composed which illustrates this text has this idea implicitly. Theologically, we love God first, then the neighbour, and lastly ourselves. Psychologically, it is the other way around, first myself, then the neighbour and finally God. This is because when we truly love our neighbour, we are already "ipso facto" loving God.
The nature of love
To love is to want the good of the other. St. Thomas Aquinas
Love is the most misused word in all languages. Much of what is passed off as love is not love at all but instinct, and affective or sexual attraction. However, they commonly fall into the category of love since no other word or verb comes to us. Take, for example, the expression "to make love", referring to the realization of the sexual act. Love is not made and, if it were made, then "love is works, not words”, as the Castilian proverb says.
By their fruits you will know them, says the gospel, the fruits are the works. It is in what we do for the loved ones that we show how much we love them. "Making love" has nothing to do with works, it is just one of the many expressions of love, like kissing, embracing, caressing. However, as these expressions of love can also be expressions of lust, it is only by works that we truly know who loves and who doesn’t.
When I say "I love you", what I really mean to say is that I want you to love me
If we are truly honest with ourselves, we will realize that most of the time when we say "I love you", what we are actually saying is that we want to win the favor of the other, that is, we want the other to love us. Saying "I love you" is the same as throwing the ball to see if the other one catches it and says "I love you too". The moment you say it, you belong to me, I won your love.
Upon hearing this, Don Juan or Casanova would set off immediately for the next conquest, because to love was to subjugate the other, to conquer her, to possess her, to have her at his mercy. This happened and still happens because she who truly loves submits herself, hands over herself, gives of herself. If both experience this, very well; if not, if only one gives and the other possesses, the one who truly loves, that is, who hands over her heart and soul becomes vulnerable and susceptible to abuse.
To love is not to seek the love of the other, but to seek to love the other. To love is not to possess, but to be possessed, to love is not to conquer, but to be conquered, to love is not to win, but to be won over, to love is not to submit the other, but to submit oneself to the other. One does not kill oneself for love. In true love there are no crimes of passion: those who kill for love do not show that they love the other, because to love is to want the good of the other. He who kills out of love shows that he loves himself, only himself and no one else.
There are no reasons to justify killing, but there are reasons to justify dying; no one has greater love than he who gives his life for his friends, Jesus says in this regard. Those who think and even say "if you're jealous because of me, it's because you love me" are much deceived. There is nothing more false than this statement. The exact opposite is true: if he is jealous because of me, it's because he wants me to love him and only him. He who truly loves leaves the other free, and because he wants the good of the other and can accept that this good does not pass by him. Although saddened, he will let the other go without jealousy, revolt or revenge.
The Greek language has different words for different types of love, which also helps us to clarify and discern about the origin and nature of our feelings, instincts and thoughts concerning love.
Storge – This is the love between parents and children, and between siblings, a love based on blood ties. It's an instinctive love; it is unconditional because it is instinctive: we will always love our father, our mother and our siblings, no matter what they do. The same is true among mammals closest to man in the evolution of species.
The love of a mother is greatly exalted. A mother gives her heart and soul to her child, she lives for him and is willing to die for him. It is the sign and symbol of true love. However, when we broaden our field of vision, we see the same happening among animals closest to the humans in the evolution of species: in all mammals and even in birds.
Storge masquerades as true love, although it is difficult to know what percentage of this love is pure instinct. In a woman it will become evident later that it was not love after all, but instinct, when the figure of a mother hen, more obvious while her children are like chicks, turns into a possessive mother-in-law who does not realize that her children are no longer of educational age like the chicks.
This behaviour is even worse than in animals, because the latter at least lose their maternal instinct when their young reach adulthood. In contrast, the human mother never loses this feeling, never grants or consents to the autonomy, independence and freedom of her child.
Eros – We continue in the domain of instinct: the instinct of blood ties in storge, the sexual instinct in eros. Everything we have said above about what is normally understood as love fits to a large extent here and in the concept of philia, because much of what we call love is pure sexual or affective attraction.
Eros or erotic love is purely physical attraction to the body of the other, he does not take into account the rest of the other’s life, person, vicissitudes or problems. For erotic love, the other exists only as a body that I want to possess, manipulate, use for sexual pleasure.
There are many crimes committed within the framework of this love which is pure sexual attraction. Many politicians, clerics and great men of science and culture ruin their careers and lives, letting themselves be dominated by this powerful instinct, abusing others and even innocent children, ruining them for the rest of their lives, and can turn them into future abusers when they reach adulthood.
On the other hand, in the past, it filled the orphanages with children brought into the world outside the framework of a man's love for a woman. Many of these children fell into the world of delinquency, drug, and prostitution. To combat the plague of orphanages, society legalized infanticide by calling it abortion and created around the murdered children an industry that uses their remains for various purposes, even in cosmetics.
Philia – In the love of friendship, we continue in the sphere of instinct and attraction. If storge is the natural attraction for the members of the same family and eros the sexual and physical attraction, then philia is the affective attraction for the personhood of the other, not anymore for his physical appearance, but more for his spirit, for his way of being, for his intellect, for his virtues.
As a sexual attraction, eros leads us to establish a relationship with people of the opposite sex or the same sex in the case of homosexuality. Affective attraction, on the other hand, usually occurs between people of the same sex, remembering our friends in childhood and adolescence, and these are friendships that remain often throughout the lifetime.
The love of friendship, in a certain sense, is superior to erotic love because it is an attraction not to the physical, but to the person, to how the person is. Since it is psychological and affective, it is morally superior, although we continue in the domain of attraction; I am attracted to this person because he or she complements me, because he or she has what I don't have, because he or she helps me to be better. This is not yet a free and unconditional love, for it is full of interests even if they are not material.
Agape – When the word love appears in the Bible, especially in the New Testament, which was originally written in Greek, the word that appears is agape, which is translated as caritas in Latin, charity in the Neo-Latin languages. Of the four concepts of love, this is the only one that honors the word love. Others use the word love, but are the fruit of instinctive attraction to another person, to their body or spirit, or because they have common genes.
This is the only 100% unselfish and unconditional love that is not connected to anything that the other has or possesses that might interest us -- his body, his spirit, his material goods, his way of being, his intelligence. It is this love that the rest of the text will deal with, unselfish, unconditional, oblative love. The love that defines God, the love with which God loves us.
If you want to know if anyone loves you with this love, all you have to do is to ask them this simple question: why do you love me? The question leads implicitly to a trap, because whatever the answer is, the other denounces himself, revealing an interest. Let's look at some possible answers:
Because you are beautiful… One day when I am old and stop being beautiful, would you still love me?
Because you have a perfect body... One day when I grow fat, will you stop loving me?
Because you are good in bed… One day, with age, when I am impotent, will you stop loving me?
Because you are rich… If one day I lose all my money, will you leave me?
Because you have a good heart… If one day my life sours, will you stop wanting me?
Because you have a good character... If I get depression or mentally ill, will you stop loving me?
Whatever the response, it will most likely reveal a selfish interest, something one person does not have and seeks in the other. Where there is self-interest, there is no true love, for love to be true it needs to be purified of all selfishness. Only unconditional love is real love.
The question has only two valid and positive answers. The first would be to answer "I don't know"; the second would be to say "because you are you"; "because there has never been anyone and there will never be anyone like you." We are all unique, not only in the history of mankind but in the history of the universe because we have an unreproducible genetic code. On the other hand, on a theological level, the place we occupy in God's heart can only be occupied by us.
Love is not a feeling, it is a need
As we have already said when talking about Nonviolent Communication, over the centuries, love has been presented at the same time as a need, a feeling and an action. In NVC, however, the same reality cannot be at the same time a need, a feeling and an action.
Feelings when they are positive is the alarm bell of needs that are met, and when negative they are the alarm bell of unmet needs. On the other hand, actions are required or motivated by needs. What happens at a psychological level happens at a physical level: if I feel satiated, the need to eat is met; if I feel hungry, the need to eat is not met. The same is true of all physical or psychic, moral or spiritual needs.
Love is not a feeling because it is not an adjective that qualifies a noun. As Rosenberg points out, feelings are volatile and ephemeral; with the exception of grief, we cannot focus on a feeling for more than 40 seconds.
Of course, love involves feelings because these tell us whether or not the need to love and be loved is being met or not. For example, the feeling of empathy reveals that my need to love is being met; by contrast, the feeling of jealousy reveals that my need to be loved is not being met.
Love as a need arouses feelings, but it does not arouse a specific one, since it arouses many and varied ones. It leads the person to act, but not to carry out a single specific action; the acts of expression of love are many and varied, they depend on many variables that lead us to express it in one way or another.
The feelings of love
"Where there is smoke there is fire" – the smoke is the feeling, the fire is the need. Each of our feelings is intrinsically related to a particular need. The feeling will be positive if the need is met, negative if the need which the feeling refers to is not met.
Positive – (When the need to love and to be loved is satisfied) Joy, enthusiasm, hope, pleasure, confidence, satisfaction, attraction, contentment, etc.
Negative – (When the need to love and to be loved is not satisfied) Sadness, homesickness, depression, longing, loneliness, despair, bitterness.
The actions of love
Benevolence, kindness, generosity, giving and receiving, help, serving others, listening, praising, supporting, helping, caressing, etc.
Love is a right and a duty
Loving and being loved is the first human need, after the physical needs. There is no human life without love; to live is to love. Throughout our lives we will have this need. Therefore, because it is a human need and because there is no authentic human life without love, to love is, at the same time, a duty and a right.
As an inherent need of human nature and human dignity, all human beings have the right to be loved and the duty to love. As children, the priority is to be loved, for it is by being loved unconditionally that we learn to love unconditionally. As adults, the priority is to love; if an adult has the priority to be loved more than to love, he is not a mature adult. He is one of those adults that we see so often in soap operas, who uses a thousand and one strategies and tricks to get someone's esteem and do little or nothing to love someone else.
At the educational level, love is a duty of adults towards children, an inherent and innate right of children in relation to adults. Outside the sphere of education, the need to love and be loved remains for the rest of our lives, so it is always, at the same time, a right even if we do not claim it, and a duty even if we do not exercise it.
However, God will continually ask us "where is your brother" (Genesis 4:9). To answer that we are not our brother's keeper is not an answer that satisfies God or our moral conscience. It is also worth remembering that the matter of the final judgment is the same matter of life: love. If you loved, you lived; if you didn't love, you didn't live, you were a living dead, that is, the body was alive, but the soul was already dead. With the death of the body, you return to the nothingness from which God had created you. He took you from the nothingness intending to make you into a somebody; but unfortunately, you did not collaborate with his grace so you go back to nothingness, which is eternal death.
"Love is like the moon: when it does not increase, it decreases" – This is a very interesting Portuguese proverb. And what kind of love is it referring to? Only to the erotic and affective love, that is, to the romantic love. Everything in life is dynamic, but love is not, because it is not a feeling. It evokes feelings when we love and feelings when we are loved, but it is not, in itself, a feeling because it has no ups and downs.
As an inherent need of the human person, love does not grow or fade, it always remains the same. God's love does not grow because it is not deficient, incomplete, or imperfect; this is the love with which our parents love us: it neither grows nor fades. If God is love, Man, created in his image and likeness, is also love, because only in love, with love and for love can he live. That's why you either love the other or you don't. Those who truly love cannot love any more or any less.
Religion and life
The Jews have two contradictory passions: that of deducing countless laws from the initial 10 commandments and seeking to legislate all aspects of individual and social life. As the result of too many laws, another passion arises, that of breaking down and discerning what is the most important commandment.
When the Pharisee asked Jesus about the most important commandment, he expected Jesus to answer him by quoting what is considered to be the Israelite Creed recited every morning: "Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart." Jesus, in fact, lived up to the Pharisee’s expectation, but he added another commandment that the Pharisee did not expect, which was also in one of the books of the Pentateuch, so it was also a Law of Moses. In doing so, he revolutionized the relationship between religion and life.
In so doing, Jesus made a personal synthesis of the entire Old Testament, by saying that in the observance of love of God and neighbour the whole Old Testament is summarized, that is, the law, the five books of the Pentateuch, and all the books of the prophets. In addition to the synthesis, Jesus gives us in this double commandment a personal interpretation of the Old Testament by establishing a relationship between life and religion, between the relationship with God and the relationship with others.
Until Jesus came, life and religion were divorced from each other, very far away was the commandment of love of God from the commandment of love of neighbour. Despite 2000 years of Christianity, this divorce continues between faith and life. They are like the two lines of the railroad tracks which never meet, which always remain distant or equidistant from each other, without religion influencing life or life influencing religion.
"I heard that you sold an old car as new at an exorbitant price," says one friend to another, "and as far as I know, you are a practicing Catholic; what do you tell the priest when you go to Confession?" The dishonest salesman replies, "I tell the priest my sins, not my businesses."
This is much more than a joke, it is very real. The expression "practicing Catholic" is not understood as someone who embodies faith in life, but rather as someone who goes to Mass on Sundays and attends the sacraments, goes to confession and takes communion at least on Easter Sunday, abstains from meat on Fridays during Lent and fasts twice a year. Sadly, this is a practicing Catholic, and not a person who lives differently from others, who is salt of the earth and light of the world as Jesus told us to be.
It was not only on this occasion that Jesus sought to unite the practice of faith with everyday life. In fact, even at the beginning of the Bible, Yahweh asks Cain the whereabouts his brother Abel and Cain replies that he does not know, that he is not his brother's keeper. But the case is that we are our brothers’ keepers. At all times, we should know how they are doing. We cannot pass by on the other side, like bad Samaritans, when we meet a needy person in our way; this person is my neighbour and this is the conclusion of the parable of the Good Samaritan; this is why I cannot pass by on the other side.
"Each one knows of himself and God knows of everyone" This proverb also reveals religion as a private practice that does not interfere with my social life or question it. Jesus, however, tells us “So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.” Matthew 5:23-24
If this is not clear to you, St. John the Evangelist asks you how you can love God whom you cannot see if you do not love your neighbour whom you can see; and if you think you know a lot about God, he even says to you, "he who does not love, does not know God." Finally, the entry into Heaven depends on the practice of lay acts of love, not on the practice of religious acts; the so-called religious acts are the liturgical expression of faith.
What counts are the works: by their fruits you will know them. At the end of our life, we will not be judged by who we are, by how much or how little faith we have, but by the way that faith has been translated into works. I was hungry, I was thirsty, I was in hospital, I was in prison, I was an outsider, and you helped me or did not help me. Jesus transformed a simple act, like giving a glass of water, into a religious act when he said, "Whoever did this did it for Me, and whoever did not do this, did not do it for Me"; the Christian religion is a lay religion, for Jesus there is no difference between the lay and the religious.
LOVE MYSELF AS GOD LOVES ME
Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. 1 John 4:8
The human being is always the subject and never the object; however, in self-knowledge the same person is, at the same time, subject and object; subject because he wants to know, object because he himself is the object and objective of this knowledge. After becoming aware of ourselves, of knowing ourselves and knowing who we are, the third question is whether or not we accept ourselves as we are.
Self-awareness and self-knowledge are more acts of our intelligence than of our will. Possessing and accepting oneself is an act of will. If knowing yourself is like looking in the mirror, then self-esteem is liking what you see there, and accepting yourself as you are. One thing is what I am objectively, that is, how others see me, another thing is the image I have of myself, which is always subjective, that is, how I see myself and value myself.
The positive or negative way a person sees himself necessarily affects the way he acts. Low self-esteem can lead to behavioral problems. For example, when ten of the spies who had been sent to explore the land of Canaan saw themselves as locusts compared to the tall stature of the inhabitants there, they manifested their low self-esteem, concluding that they were unable to take possession of the land. (Numbers 13: 31-33).
Genesis of self-esteem
Self-esteem is the result of all the experiences and interpersonal relationships that the person had in his life. All the people we have met in the course of our life, especially in the early years of our existence, have had a positive or negative effect on how we see and evaluate ourselves.
The child does not know himself by what he thinks he is, but by what others tell him he is; if they tell him he is bad, he thinks he is bad; if they tell him he is good, he thinks he is good; if they love him unconditionally, he will come to love himself unconditionally, if they despise him, he will also despise himself.
How low self-esteem develops
Children who have been abused and violated physically, sexually or verbally, who have been used as objects or manipulated in any way, who have never or rarely been cuddled, who have constantly received negative messages about themselves, who have been ridiculed or ignored, criticized and never praised for their successes and achievements, and have been unfavorably compared to others, these children will suffer in the future from a low self-esteem from which it will be difficult to free themselves.
How self-esteem develops
By contrast, children educated positively will have self-esteem. They are those who often hear words of praise, "I trust in you," "I know you're trying" in face of failure that was preceded by effort, and who hear "you did your best," "I'm impressed with you, thank you for being honest", "I'm proud of you", etc.
Do not miss any opportunity to praise a child. We take for granted many of the things our children do without recognizing them. We should always reinforce the desired behaviors, congratulate when children make the right choice in any situation, do not let this choice go unnoticed, validate the achievement with a smile and a hug, avoid the addiction to praise in the negative: "It's about time you did it...” This is more a humiliation, than a compliment. Avoid demoting and comparing children with other children.
Where it should not be based
Paraphrasing the gospel, some base their self-esteem on quicksand, on changing realities, and as the result, one day they can feel good about themselves and the next day depressed.
Physical appearance – This is not a good reason to like yourself because we all get old. Unlike inner beauty, physical appearance is not something that can improve with age, so what is now a source of pride will be a cause of shame tomorrow. Moreover, as was proved in the episode of selecting David as king, God looks on the heart of the person and not on his outward appearance (1 Samuel 16:7).
Performance – If on the one hand, our self-esteem is based on our performance, it will be linked to our successes and failures: it will rise when we succeed and fall when we fail. On the other hand, others may be more successful than us; should we therefore feel less worthy? Regarding my past performances, God has already forgiven me in Christ (Col. 2:13). As for the present, He loves me unconditionally (Rom. 5:8). As for the future, I can do all things through him who strengthens me (Phil. 4:13).
Wealth – Material good is another unstable foundation to base our self-esteem on. Today we have it, tomorrow we don’t. Earthly treasures are subject to moth, rust and thieves, while heavenly ones are sheltered from these vicissitudes of life. Furthermore, as Jesus says, even if a man lives in abundance, his life does not depend on his possessions (Lk. 12:15).
Opinion of others – This is another unstable foundation that makes us dependent on others: adapting our behavior to what is popular. We end up becoming actors, no longer ourselves, and we cannot be happy when we are not ourselves. We seek fame, becoming dependent on it. Let us take as a warning Christ’s experience of the fickleness of a crowd’s adulation: Palm Sunday is very close to Good Friday.
Where to base it
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. Eleanor Roosevelt
Self-esteem is the evaluative perception of ourselves – A set of beliefs, perceptions, thoughts, evaluations, feelings and tendencies of conduct towards ourselves that configure and determine our way of being, keeping and acting in the world and with others.
True self-esteem is rooted in our relationship with God... (John 1:12). True love is unconditional: God loves us unconditionally, our parents love us unconditionally and we must love ourselves unconditionally.
Without inferiority or superiority complex, true self-esteem is a realistic, sensible and honest view of ourselves: our virtues and our flaws, our talents and limitations, our values and our beliefs. Just as we benefit from our successes, we should also benefit from the mistakes of the past, understanding them as lessons learned.
Low – is unaware or devalues one’s own talents; overvalues one’s own limitations, is insecure.
Normal – has an objective, is sensible and has a healthy self-critical self-knowledge of one’s own talents and limitations.
High – is unaware or devalues one’s own limitations; overvalues one’s own talents, is a bully.
Unconditional self-love is not selfishness: on the contrary, it is the measure of love for others. First, I am called to love myself; second, I am called to love others with the same measure as I love myself. Self-love, self-esteem or self-empathy, far from being connoted as selfishness, it is the basis on which all kinds of relationships I establish with others and with God are built.
There is therefore no true altruism, whether to one’s neighbour or to God, without the prior existence of self-esteem or empathy for oneself. On the other hand, it is the love for others and for God that make self-esteem not selfish. The three loves balance each other in a constant dialectical dynamics. It is the other, my neighbour, who forces me to go out of myself, and it is the Other, God, who motivates and inspires my acts of love.
LOVE MY NEIGHBOUR AS MYSELF
You shall love your neighbour as yourself. Leviticus 19:18
Those who say, ‘I love God’, and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. 1 John 4:20
As we have said above and as the illustration of this text indicates, first comes the love of self, since it is this that constitutes as the measure of all things, that is, I must then love my neighbour as I love myself. If the measure of love of neighbour is that with which I love myself, what should then be the measure of my love for myself?
The measure of love is to love without measure and who loves us without measure is God. Finally, it seems that the foundation of love is self-esteem or the love we have for ourselves; but this is not so, because the true measure of love that we must have for ourselves is God. We must love ourselves as God loves us.
I have found it easier to love others unconditionally than to love myself unconditionally. We are very critical of ourselves and often to the point of being destructive; when God has long forgiven us, we still do not forgive ourselves or forget what we have done, spending the rest of our lives confessing the same sin, offending God in the process, since we do not forgive or forget, we believe that God also does not forgive or forget.
To love ourselves, we need to prove to ourselves that we deserve it, we need to see works done, and when we do not see them, we become depressed. We are perfectionists and therefore we are never happy, we forget that God accepts both 60% and 30%, but we are only happy if we reach 100% (Matthew 13:8).
Everything begins in God, everything ends in God, he is the measure of love, not us, because we will never be able to love ourselves as He loves us, neither with the same intensity nor with the same quality. The love we have for ourselves will never be as adequate as what God has for us.
The other one that crosses in my path
Little children let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. 1 John 3:18
It is told that a rich man was driving his luxury car, the latest model of a prestigious brand, on a night when it rained heavily. Suddenly, a battered, dirty and skinny girl shivering from cold passed before him. The man, feeling compassion for the girl, vented in a prayer saying "how can you allow this, my God?". In this, he heard a voice in his conscience say to him, "Indeed I do not allow this; that is why the girl passed before you so that you can do something for her."
We can go out looking for someone to help. But it is no necessary, they come to us in a thousand and one ways, crossing our path. I always marveled at the fact that the gospels always presented Jesus to us in the midst of a task, never presenting Jesus to us inactive, doing nothing, and yet always being willing to go here or there, to help this one or that one. It is this availability that Jesus possessed and that we too must possess in our daily lives.
We must also have our eyes and ears wide open to realize the needs of others, as Mary, the mother of Jesus, was at the wedding in Cana; others are often ashamed to ask us, as happened also at this wedding: we must be diligent, for many times the needs of others are quite evident.
Many loves do not go beyond words and feelings. In the parable of the Good Samaritan, it is clear what it means to love one's neighbour. It is not saying I love him or feeling compassion for him, but rather to get out of my routine, my schedule, my program, my life and let the other one in. It is putting aside what I was doing to devote myself to the other.
The golden rule
‘In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets. Matthew 7:12
Unlike Judaism which is negative, with commandments that only tell us what we should not do, Christianity is positive because it is based on the commandment of love. While Judaism is about how to avoid evil and what evils to avoid, Christianity is about doing good based on the commandment of love. No one is good because they avoid evil, but because they do good things.
A Canadian missionary discovered that there is a version of this maxim in all religions and for this reason he called it the "golden rule" – and found that while in other religions, including Judaism, the rule was negatively formulated: "Don't do to others what you don't want them to do to you", in Christianity, this same rule as we see in the gospel is formulated positively.
Christianity is the "religion" of initiative; we do not expect the other to come to us, we go to the other, moved by the sole purpose of loving the person. What I want for myself, I must want for the other too. We often project ourselves on others, but almost never on those who suffer; we should use this defense mechanism of projection on the other to ask ourselves the question "what if I were the one who was in trouble, how would I want to be helped if I was the one in need?" The answer to this question should motivate our action towards the needy.
LOVE GOD MORE THAN MYSELF
Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. Deuteronomy 6:4-9
For all intents and purposes, the Creator always knows more about the creature than the creature knows about himself. The Creator loves the creature more than the creature loves himself. The Creator knows all about the creature's past, present, and future, therefore, he is capable of defending the creature’s interests more than the creature himself.
Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. Matthew 10:37
All the creature can and must do is to surrender himself into the hands of the loving Creator, just as a baby without hesitation throws himself into his father's arms. Thus, we can understand the classic text of love of God which is the creed that every Jew recites when he gets up in the morning. Love of God above all things, above all people, complete and absolutely exclusive, above the love we have for ourselves.
Doing God's will
He who has my commandments and keeps them is the one who loves me; and he who loves me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and I will manifest myself unto him. John 14:21
Jesus says that his food is to do the will of the Father (John 4:34). Food and drink are things we take several times a day, we cannot spend too long without doing them. What a beautiful metaphor from Jesus' lips to demonstrate the union between him and the Father. This same union must exist between us and God.
Only the one who makes a machine knows how it works, the machine itself does not know it; we are a machine created by God, in everything equal to a machine, with the difference of us being self-conscious and being able to disobey the rules of operation of our machine. However, when we do disobey, the machine malfunctions and stops working or does not work perfectly as when it obeys God's instructions.
If there is an immutable human nature, there is only one unique way of operating the machine not two. Therefore, let us do God's will by keeping his commandments and everything will be fine, for without him we can do nothing. (John 15:5)
Where is our freedom if all we have to do in life is to obey God as Jesus did? Our freedom is in the fact that we can choose not to obey although disobedience always bring disaster. I compare God to an air traffic controller.
He knows how many airplanes are flying in his airspace, he knows their speed, their route and their altitudes, and he gives commands to each aircraft in order to avoid air collision. The pilots may choose not to obey the air traffic controller, but they know that when they do that they are in for trouble, to themselves and to others as they put everyone’s safety at risk
Because God loves us and knows us more than we do ourselves, obeying Him is always in our own best interest; obeying Him is the best thing to do.
God only loves those who love him
Often in sermons, to get the attention of those who are half asleep, I throw a grenade in the middle of the audience by saying, "God loves only those who love Him." Then those who consider themselves theologians object and say no, that God loves everyone equally, and even quote me the Bible, that God makes rain fall both on the just and the unjust.
And it is true, in theory God loved both Hitler and Francis of Assisi. However, their lives were not the same; if the two had the same quantity and quality of God's love, why were they so different? Francis accepted God's love; he echoed it by loving God back; Hitler did not. The sun, before reaching our planet and warming and illuminating it, passes through space where the temperature is 300 degrees below zero. Why? Because there is nothing in it that echoes and welcomes that light and that heat. The only way to echo God's love is to love Him too.
"Love is paid with love" - As the Scripture says, God loved us first and always loves us, but if I don't echo his love in me, it is as if he does not love me. Only with love can we echo God's love in us. To love, either we respond with love or we are ungrateful. Therefore, although in theory God loves everyone equally, only the one who accepts this love, only the one who is open to God's love, feels the effects of this love. The act of accepting God's love, of being open to God's love, is to love God.
Conclusion - If you want to be happy, love yourself as God loves you, your neighbour as yourself, and God more than yourself.
Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC