Dr. Helen Titilola OLOJEDE

 

What are you motivated by? Is it self-love or love of self? You think they are the same? Not quite! Come along. From my research which Mother Olga affirms, self-love is one of the many obstacles to our faith journey. What is the difference between self-love and love of self?

 

In the gospels, Jesus asked us to love our neighbour as ourselves. That means to love yourself is not a sin as long as you see yourself through the eyes of God the Father, who meets you where you are and loves you in spite of your circumstances. However, self-love means when we see everything around us through our own lenses. Love of oneself is all about God and how he sees us, but self-love is all about us and how we see ourselves and everything else and everyone else in our lives. 

In The Devotion to the Sacred Heart, Father Croiset begins by noting that self-love is something that almost everyone struggles with, even those who are very advanced in the spiritual life. He says:  "It is only too true that people who are not influenced in their actions by self-love are very rare, and that the difference between spiritual people and those who are not so is that the latter, self-love, acts without disguise, while in the former, it is less visible and somewhat better disguise. If people wish to take the trouble to examine the true motives of most of their actions, which they think have the least defects, they would discover that self-love is the most powerful motive, which it puts on a hundred disguises and prevents the fruit of their actions."

 

 Self-love, while not inherently evil, can become an obstacle when it leads to excessive attachment to our own opinions, desires, and comfort.  This can make it difficult to fully submit to Jesus' will and to embrace the selfless love that is central to devotion to the Sacred Heart. Oftentimes in our spiritual life, we might feel excited to do what God is asking us to do. When the sacrifices asked of us are light and the feeling in prayer enjoyable, why wouldn't we choose to love God and our neighbour? But heroic love, the kind shown by the Good Samaritan, is revealed when God invites us to extend the love of his heart to places we might not want to go. It is in these moments that we are forced to confront the possibility that self-love might be preventing us from fully accepting our mission to carry out the will of God in our daily lives.

 

We will continue from here next week.