GOD SAYS WE MUST LOVE HIM AND HATE THE WORLD
Foreword, the following is from a noted Catholic work regarded as exceptional in
teaching what the Church requires. It is heavily biblical. As it
teaches that God gives you the power to love your neighbour and it is God you
are using to do that that is why the command to love God totally and to love
neighbour are really in a sense the same. They are really about God.
You love your neighbour for how God expresses himself in the neighbour.
Naturally with such a doctrine, secularists and atheists are regarded as a great
potential evil. They may be admitted to be good but that can be compared
to the goodness the frog feels as the pot of water it is in gets hotter and
hotter. Then suddenly it dies without warning. Atheists need to start
linking god with the duty to love him and admit that the teaching logically
threatens them and their place in society. Note how it says the command to
love all not just just those who love you is described by Jesus as a
new commandment. This accuses Jewish religion of being harmful
and stupid. It promises that those who love God are happier
than those who have every material thing. Yet we know pagans
and atheists who are extremely happy.
SOURCE:
THE CATECHISM EXPLAINED
The Best Work for Catechists and Teachers.
SPIRAGO'S METHOD OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE.
A Manual for Priests, Teachers, and Parents. Edited by the Right Rev.
S. G. Messmer, D.D., D.C.L., Bishop of Green Bay.
II. THE TWO COMMANDMENTS OF CHARITY.
4, The love of God is of great advantage to us: Through it
we are united to God here on earth, our minds are enlightened,
our will is strengthened; we obtain pardon of sin, peace of soul,
manifold proofs of God's favor, and after death celestial joys.
As avarice is the root of all evil, so the holy love of God is the root
of all that is good. It is compared to oil, or to fire, for like these it
rises upward, it gives light and warmth; it softens and purifies. He
who loves God is the dwelling-place of the Holy Spirit; thus he is
united to God. Through love God becomes present in our hearts as
He is in heaven ; for Christ says : " If any man love Me, My Father
will love him, and we will come to him and make our abode with
him " (John xiv. 23).
Love of God and sanctifying grace cannot be
dissevered; where one is, there is the other. He who loves God enjoys
heaven upon earth. " Hence," says St. Francis of Sales, " we should
not be too anxious to discover whether we are pleasing to God, but
rather whether God is pleasing to us." The man who loves God obtains through the indwelling of the Holy Ghost enlightenment of the
mind, strengthening of the will, pardon of sin, and true peace of soul.
Our soul is like a mirror, which reflects the object towards which it
is turned. If therefore we direct it towards God, the light of His
divinity will shine into our soul, which will have a clear perception,
that is, of divine things. " In the love of God is honorable wisdom "
(Ecclus. i. 14).
...
Whosoever loves God feels within him the
divine presence, and this affords him greater satisfaction than all
the pleasures of the world. Without charity there is no true peace.
He who loves God enjoys true peace, because his will is in entire
conformity to the will of God. ....
Through the love of God we attain the joys of heaven. St. Paul says :
" Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the
heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love
Him" (1 Cor. ii. 9). This is because he is rich in good works who is
inflamed with divine charity, for love stimulates us to action. Hence
the Apostle says: " The charity of Christ presses us " (2 Cor. v. 14).
To behold God, as we shall in heaven, and to love Him is one and the
same thing. We needs must love the highest when we see it. " He
who knows by experience," says St. Alphonsus, " how sweet and
delightful it is to love God, loses all taste for earthly things."
The merit of our good works and the degree of our future
felicity is in proportion to the magnitude of our love for God.
" The greater is our love of God," says St. Francis of Sales, " the
more meritorious are our actions. God does not regard the greatness
of the work, but the love wherewith it is performed."
...St. Francis of Assisi would repeat
for whole days and nights the words : " My God and my all ! " It is
all the more important to make acts of love because the command to
love God imposes it upon us as an obligation. St. Alphonsus declares
that he who for a whole month neglects this practice can scarcely be
exempt from mortal sin. Our love should be without limit or
measure, as is God Himself.
The love of God is lost by mortal sin.
As water extinguishes fire, so the love of God is quenched in our
hearts by mortal sin. He who has thus lost the love of God has
turned his mind away from God, and directed it wholly to creatures.
Except sin, nothing has power to deprive us of the love of God. Thus
St. Paul exclaims : " I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels
nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to
come, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the
love of God" (Rom. viii. 38).
IV. THE LOVE OF THE WORLD IS OPPOSED TO THE
LOVE OF GOD.
However cruel or depraved a man may be, his heart clings to some
person or thing, his nature impels him to love some object. If he
does not love God above all, he needs must love a creature above all.
1. The love of the world consists in loving, above all, money,
or the gratification of one's appetite, or earthly honors or any
thing else in the world, instead of giving the first place to God.
The love of creatures is not in itself sinful, only when the creature
is more loved than the Creator. All who love creatures more than
God are idolaters, because they give to creatures the honor due to God.
One loves money, like Judas; another eating and drinking, like
Dives ; and many others whose god is their belly ; a third sacrifices all
to ambition, like Absalom ; others have an inordinate love of amusements, gambling and the like. All these resemble the Jews who
danced round the golden calf at the foot of Mount Sinai. The
maxim of the man of the world is : " Let us eat and drink, for to
morrow we die." The love of the world is worse than high treason;
it makes a man a traitor to the King of kings.
2. Through love of the world we incur the loss of sanctifying
grace, and eternal felicity.
The lover of the world does not possess sanctifying grace. As
the dove does not rest upon anything that is unclean or corrupt, so
the Holy Spirit does not dwell in the soul of the carnally-minded
and evil (St. Ambrose). The Holy of holies cannot dwell in the soul
that is stained with sin. " If thy heart be full of vinegar, how can it
be filled with honey? It must first be emptied, and undergo a toil
some process of cleansing," says St. Augustine. He who is destitute
of the presence of the Holy Spirit, that is, of sanctifying grace (the
wedding-garment), shall be cast into exterior darkness (Matt. xxii.
12). Hence Christ threatens the votary of the world with eternal
damnation : " He that loveth his life (who endeavors to get out of it
all possible enjoyment) shall lose it" (John xii. 25). Again, "Woe
to you that are filled, for you shall hunger. Woe to you that now
laugh, for you shall mourn and weep " (Luke vi. 25). No more than
a ship lying fast at anchor can sail into harbor, can a man who loves
the world reach the haven of eternal felicity. " Which dost thou prefer ? " asks St. Augustine, " to love the world and go to perdition, or
to love Christ and enter into life everlasting ? " He is a fool who
for the sake of this passing world plays away eternal life.
3. The love of the world blinds the soul of man, and leads
him away from God.
The love of the world blinds the soul of man. ...As the sun s rays cannot penetrate muddy water, so the lover of
the world cannot be enlightened by the Holy Spirit...
(Luke xiv. 16).
4. The love of the world destroys interior peace, and makes
men fear death greatly.
The worldling is a stranger to interior peace. It has been well
said: A man must choose between indulgence of the senses and
tranquillity of soul. The two are not compatible. One might as
well try to fill a vessel that has holes in it, as to satisfy the heart
that only strives after the pleasures of time and sense. And since
the votaries of the world can never attain interior peace, they want a
constant change of amusement, as one who cannot sleep turns
restlessly from side to side in the hope of finding rest. Christ alone
can give us true content. He said to His apostles : " Peace I leave
with you, My peace I give unto you ; not as the world giveth do I give
unto you" (John xiv. 27). St. Augustine exclaims: "Our heart has
no rest until it rest in Thee, O Lord ! " The lover of the world fears
death so much, because he will be parted from his idol, and because
death will put an end to the happiness he makes it his object to
attain. He has, besides, an inward presentiment of what will follow
after death. On account of this all who love the world are filled
with apprehension and even despair in the hour of death. The prisoner fears nothing so much as the summons to appear before the
judge; and the sinner, though he is never free from alarm, dreads the
moment above all when his soul will leave the body and enter the
presence of her divine Judge (St. John Chrysostom). The fish that is
caught on the hook scarcely feels pain until it is drawn out of the
water ; so those who are entangled in the meshes of the world first feel
real anguish when their last hour comes. Think, O worldling, if the
joys which the devil offers you are thus mixed with bitterness, what
will the torments be which he prepares for you hereafter?
5. The love of the world gives rise to hatred of God and
of His servants.
A man who loves the world cannot possibly have the love of God
within him. Just as a ring which encircles one finger cannot at the
same time encircle another, so the human heart cannot love God if
love binds it to some earthly object. St. John says : " If any man love
the world, the charity of the Father is not in him" (1 John ii. 15),
We cannot look with the same eye both at heaven and earth at the
same time. The lover of the world even goes so far as to hate God
and divine things. Thus Christ says : " No man can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will
sustain the one and despise the other " (Matt. vi. 24) . What are we
to conclude if we hear any one rail at priests and at religion ? The
lover of the world is therefore the enemy of God. " If thou wouldst
not be the enemy of God," says St. Augustine, " be an enemy of the
world."
6. The love of the world ceases at death.
There are many things which thou canst only love for a time ...
V. THE COMMANDMENT OF CHARITY TOWARDS OUR
NEIGHBOR
Every human being is our neighbor, without distinction of
religion, of race, of age, of sex, or of occupation.
In the parable of the Good Samaritan Christ teaches us that those
who are strangers to us and even our enemies, are to be regarded as
our neighbor. In the present day some people are so foolish as to
consider none but their fellow-countrymen as their neighbors. In
Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, but all are one (Gal. iii. 28).
1. We ought to love our neighbor because this is Christ's command; furthermore because he is a child of God, made after His
image, and also because we are all descended from the same
parents and we are all called to attain eternal felicity.
Christ's precept is this : " Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thy
self " (Mark xii. 31). He who loves the father will assuredly love
his children (1 John v. 1). Now God is our common father, for
He created us (Matt. ii. 10), we are all His children, and for that
reason we ought to love one another. Those who are the offspring
of one and the same parent are blood-relations; consequently since
we all received our being from the self-same God, we stand in
the relation of brethren one to another, and on this account ought to
love one another. A man who loves his father shows respect for his
portrait. Now, our fellow-man is an image of God; he was made to
His image (Gen. i. 27) ; consequently we ought to love him. As the
moon derives its light from the sun, so the love of our neighbor flows
from the love of God. We are, moreover, all children of Adam, and
thus members of one great family, and should love one another as
such. Finally, we are called to the attainment of everlasting felicity ; we shall all live together, we shall behold the face of God and sing
His praises together. St. John says in the Apocalypse: "I saw a
great multitude which no man could number, of all nations and tribes
and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and in sight
of the Lamb" (Apoc. vii. 9). Now we find that on earth persons
who follow the same calling, such as priests, teachers, etc., always
hold together. So we, who share the same vocation to heaven with
our fellow-men, ought to be united to them in the bond of charity.
2. The love of our neighbor shows itself in desiring the good
of our neighbor from our heart; in abstaining from injuring him,
and in doing him good.
The love of our neighbor does not consist merely in affectionate sentiments, in
benevolent wishes; these would profit him little. ....
3. We are commanded to love our neighbor as ourselves, but
we are by no means obliged to love him better than ourselves.
Our Lord says : " Whatsoever you would that men should do to
you, do you also to them" (Matt. vii. 12). Holy Tobias says: " See
that thou never do to another what thou wouldst hate to have done to
thee" (Tob. iv. 16). Put yourself in your neighbor's place and you
will certainly treat him differently. Charity to one's neighbor has
its limits, however. No one is bound to deprive himself of what is
necessary, to relieve his neighbor's wants. In such cases to render
assistance is heroic charity. " Greater love than this no man hath,
that a man lay down his life for his friend" (John xv. 13). This
Our Saviour did; and hundreds of missioners continually expose
themselves to the risk of death to save souls. All the saints have
incurred personal dangers for the sake of aiding others.
4. All that we do to our neighbor, whether it be good or evil,
we do to Christ Himself; for He has said: " What you did to one
of these My least brethren, ye did it to Me " (Matt. xxv. 40).
To Saul, when he was on the way to Damascus, Our Lord said:
" Why persecutes! thou Me ? " (Acts ix. 4.) Yet we know that it was only the Christians that he was persecuting. When St. Martin
had given half his cloak to a half-naked beggar at the gate of Amiens,
Christ appeared to him in a dream wearing the half-cloak and accompanied by angels. " Martin," He said, " clothed Me to-day with this
cloak." Thus God protects our neighbor; we cannot injure him
without first injuring God.
...
Our Lord says: "By this shall all men know that you are My
disciples, if you have love one for another" (John xiii. 35)....
Our Lord calls this a new commandment (John xiii. 34), because the precept of charity to one's neighbor was not understood earlier in the sense He gives to it. Well
indeed were it for the world if charity prevailed everywhere! No
laws would be needed, no courts of justice, no punishments. Then no
man would wrong his neighbor; the very name of murders, brawls,
rebellion, robbery and the like, would be unknown. There would
be no destitution, for every one would have the necessaries of life
(St. John Chrysostom).
