How to Love God, Yourself and Your Neighbour

 “What commandment is great in the law?” Aquinas says that the Pharisee’s question is malicious. “What commandment is great…?”: all of God’s commandments are great! But the Pharisee wants the Lord to pick one. If the Lord says that one of them is great, the Pharisee could object that another is, and who is going to say that something coming from God Himself is not great?

Now, there was probably a debate among the Pharisees regarding what salvation was about, whether it was in some exterior practices or somewhere else. And so, the Lord responds that salvation is in something interior, spiritual, which is love, and all the rest depends on it. The Lord, however, not only responds to the question, but He also goes ahead and teaches several things. I will focus on four of them.

1. First, the Lord teaches that this commandment is first: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” Why first?

Anything and everything we do, we do for a reason, to achieve or reach something we want, which is called “end” or “goal.” Now, there is one end which is the ultimate end, that is, that for the sake of which we do everything we do. In general, we call this ultimate end, “happiness.” Happiness is the reason we do what we do, the reason we love the things we love, the reason we hate, the reason we are afraid of certain things, the reason we desire certain things. Now, we may not perceive it very well, but we know that happiness, complete happiness can only be found in God. God is the supreme good without any admixture of evil, and so possessing God is the highest good and utmost happiness. This happiness is fulfilled in Heaven only, but it begins somehow on earth, when we become friends with God.

Thus, the first commandment is the one setting the target, telling you that God is the ultimate end for which you should do everything you do. God is the One for the sake of which you will desire, love, and do everything in your life, and the One for whom you will hate, be afraid and not do all those things that take you away from Him. Therefore, this commandment, loving God, is not simply one among many. It is the first because it is present in all the rest, as the reason why we do or not do.

A question for reflection follows: Is there anything occupying the place of God in our lives? When we commit a mortal sin, it is because something else has become the reason to do that sinful action. Money, pleasure, being popular, or power, are sometimes the idols for the sake of which we commit mortal sin.

2. The Lord also says that we should love God with all our hearts, as if we could not live without Him; with all our souls, as the ultimate end of every decision we make; and with all our minds, that is, with all our actions, because, as Aquinas says, when we love someone we are pleased to see them, to think about them and to do what pleases them. In this way, true love of God encompasses not only all of our actions but also all the aspects of our own personal being: our emotions, our decisions and our daily activities.

“Father, feelings for God? I am so far from being ‘in love’ with God…!” The saints were in love with God, true, and we are all called to achieve this intimate friendship with God. But even if we are not yet there, are you not sometimes deeply sorry for your past sins? And is that not a feeling? Are you not afraid of hell, or of being watched by God? Fear also is emotional. And also, have you not felt, sometimes, that God loved you, or that you would do anything for Him, no matter how difficult? Have you not felt, perhaps on your First Communion, or in another Holy Communion, the sweetness of God’s love? People can sometimes feel God’s presence, or God’s encouragement when things go wrong, etc. So, even if feelings are not the most important, they are also part of religion and of our love of God. Careful: not all feelings are good even when they appear to be good, but this is another topic (i.e., “discernment of spirits”).

3. The Lord teaches also that there is another commandment like the first: the love of neighbour. Now, how can the love of neighbour be similar to the love of God? Because our neighbour is made in God’s image. Thus, if our neighbour is similar to God, then love of him or her will be similar to the love of God. It is a similar commandment, but not similar in being the first: love of neighbour is the second commandment.

We love our neighbours because they are God’s work, made in God’s image. God’s image may be blurry in our neighbours, but it’s still there, and this is why we must love them. In each human being God has prepared a temple for Himself: as long as that person is alive and has time to repent, we must see them, respect them and love them as God’s temples. Either God dwells in them already or may dwell one day.

4. We should love our neighbours as we love ourselves. We should love ourselves because of God. We are good (and so lovable), not because we achieved something, not because we have done so many good things for God and for people, but because God made us good, and He made us for Him, to be His friends. God made us good: He doesn’t make junk. Our personal value does not depend on our achievements or success, but on God’s design. The world is more beautiful with each one of us in it: if it were not so, God would not have made us. And so, because we are already good in this sense, and we have nothing to prove to anyone, we must glorify God with the good He has already given us. We must be good persons, not to achieve our personal value, but to make it blossom. And loving our neighbours means realizing that they also have nothing to prove to anyone, because they are already made in God’s image, and God has planted in them the seed of eternity (cf. Ecclesiastes 3:11). Loving our neighbours is helping them to blossom as well. It is believing that, if they are still here on earth, they have a mission, and we must help them discover that mission and fulfill it. What is good about my neighbour is that he can be God’s friend and the recipient of God’s blessings; but if he is not yet God’s friend, as he should, loving my neighbour means helping him to receive God’s love, at least with my prayers.

Being happy is realizing that we have been loved by God and blossoming in love of Him. What does God want from you? Loving our neighbours is seeing the seeds that God has planted in them, and helping them to bear fruit in love. What can you do for your neighbour?