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 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.
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.
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 from 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 it 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. Ours remains in us even as we struggle with sin and selfishness. 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 acts of charity towards God and neighbors. This goodness engages our freedom so that we mature in it through acts of self-giving love for God and for others. We become more perfect images of God through loving actions.
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 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 cannot contemplate God because we are too busy contemplating ourselves.
We must also avoid the extreme of self-hatred that does not see any good in us. When engage in self-hatred, we unknowingly carry out the devil’s work by condemning ourselves. 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.
To combat these extremes, we must cultivate a sense of humble gratitude for the goodness that God has placed in us and the grace that He has given 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.
To grow in healthy self-love, let us strive to grow in 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 greatest commandments, those of love, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” We too draw nearer to God when, grounded in our God-given goodness, we strive 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!!!
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
