WHAT DOES CATHOLIC DOCTRINE MEAN
WHEN IT SAYS WE MUST LOVE GOD TOTALLY?
Foreword, the main things to understand that the command
to love God totally and the command to love your neighbour as yourself are
summaries of the ten commandments. It says that loving neighbour is the
test of your love for God because God has decreed it be so. In other
words, you need to show your love for God by doing the hard work to obey him.
Otherwise you can be fooling yourself. 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. "
One may love creatures, but only for God's sake.
We may only take pleasure in creatures in so far as they are conducive to the service of the Most High. The Creator ought to be
loved in His creatures, not the creatures in themselves. God calls
Himself a jealous God (Exod. xx. 5), because He cannot tolerate our
loving anything which interferes with our love for Him. He must
reign supreme in our hearts, or hold no place in them at all (St.
Francis of Sales). Because the patriarch Jacob was too fond of his
youngest son, Joseph, He took him from him for a time, and He did
the same with Benjamin. So He acts towards us now. Christ says:
"He that loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of
Me" (Matt. x. 37). St. Augustine says: "He loves God too little
who loves anything besides God ; unless indeed he loves it out of love
to God."
-SOURCE:
THE CATECHISM EXPLAINED
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.
1. The most important commandments are the two commandments of charity, that is to say, the love of God and the love of
one s neighbor, for all the other commandments are comprised in
them.
When Christ was once asked by one of the Scribes which was the
first of all the commandments, He answered : " Thou shalt love the
Lord thy God with thy whole heart (i.e., with the will) and with
thy whole soul (i.e., with the understanding) and with thy whole
mind (i.e., with the affections) and with thy whole strength (i.e., in
The Two Commandments of Charity. 285
all thy actions. This is the first commandment.
And the second is
like unto it : Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself " (Mark xii.
30, 31).
The same precepts were given to the Jews (Deut. vi. 5; Lev.
xix. 18). These two commandments contain all the others, because
they influence and direct all the powers of the soul of man; the
understanding, the affections, the will, and all his actions besides.
Thus he who fulfils these two commandments of charity keeps all the
commandments; were they everywhere observed no other law would
be necessary in the State or in the family. Hence Christ says : " On
these two commandments dependeth the whole law and the prophets "
(Matt. xxii. 40). The other commandments do but inculcate in
detail what the commandments of charity enjoin.
In the command to love God the first four of the commandments of God are comprised; the other commandments of God
and the obligation to perform works of mercy are comprehended
in the second.
The first four commandments contain our duty to God. As our
supreme Ruler He requires of us in the First Commandment worship
and fidelity ; in the Second, respect ; in the Third, service ; in the
Fourth, respect towards His representatives upon earth. The other
six enjoin on us our duty to our neighbor, forbidding us to injure him
as regards his life in the Fifth ; his purity in the Sixth ; his property
in the Seventh; his honor in the Eighth; his family in the Ninth and
Tenth. The precept of Our Lord enjoining on us the performing of
works of mercy (Matt. xxv. 31 seq.) is an amplification of the second
commandment of charity, for it requires us to help our neighbor in
his need. That the last six commandments of the Decalogue are a
connected whole we gather from Our Lord s answer to the rich young
man (Matt. xix. 18). St. Paul also classes them together (Rom.
xiii. 9).
Without the love of God and of our neighbor no man can
be saved.
St. John says : " He that loveth not, abideth in death " (1 John
iii. 14). St. Augustine says that as we require two feet to walk, so
we must have the love of God and of our neighbor if we would reach
heaven, and enter into the presence of God. As the bird cannot fly
without two wings, so must we be borne aloft upon these two pinions
if we would soar up to heaven. The blessed in heaven love God and
one another; we must do the same here on earth if we are to join
their blissful company. " What is man, O God," asks St. Augustine, " that Thou dost command him to love Thee, and threaten him
with terrible chastisements if he fails to do so ? "
3. The capacity for loving God and our neighbor is bestowed
upon us simultaneously with sanctifying grace.
Of ourselves we are incapable of loving God above all things.
Ever since the blight of original sin fell upon us, it is with our
heart as with the date-palm, which transplanted to a colder clime does
indeed bear fruit, but cannot produce the ripe and delicious dates
of the land where it is indigenous. So our hearts would fain love
God, but the power is lacking to them; they can only attain to
true charity when informed by divine grace. " To will is present
with me, but how to accomplish that which is good I know not"
(Rom. vii. 18). ~Not until the Holy Spirit takes possession of us by
Baptism or penance is the love of God shed abroad in our heart. The
love of our neighbor is implanted within us at the same time as the
love of God; they are, but one, the only difference is in the object
towards which they are directed. The love of God and of our neighbor may be compared to two streams, issuing from one and the self
same source. St. Augustine says that Christ gave the Holy Spirit to
the apostles twice (when He breathed upon them and on the Day of
Pentecost) because with the Holy Spirit a twofold charity is imparted to us
4. The love of God is inseparably united to the love of our
neighbor.
As the plant is contained within the seed, so the love of our neighbor is comprised in the love of God. The two precepts are so constituted that the one cannot be observed without the other. This is
why Holy Scripture speaks of one commandment of charity. " If
any man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar" (1
John iv. 20). Our love of our neighbor is therefore the best test of
our love of God. He who cherishes ill-will towards his fellow-man,
who hates him, envies him, injures him in any way, or who grudges
alms to the needy, is destitute of the love of God. The greater our
love of God, the greater will be our love of our neighbor.
III. THE PRECEPT OF THE LOVE OF GOD.
Man is so constituted by nature that he takes delight in what he
recognizes as good and beautiful. This delight, and the desire to attain it, is called love. Thus we see love to be an act of the under
standing, the affections, and the will.
1. We ought to love God
(1), because Christ commands this;
(2), because He is in Himself essentially the highest beauty and
sovereign perfection;
(3), because He loves us and continually
bestows benefits upon us.
Christ commands us to love God, for He says : " Thou shalt love
the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, with thy whole soul, with thy
whole mind, and with thy whole strength" (Mark xii. 30). God
is the most beautiful of all beings, for if earthly beings are so beautiful, how much greater must be the beauty of God, Who is the
Creator of all these things! (Wisd. xiii. 3.) For one cannot give to
another what one has not got one's self, consequently God must possess in Himself all the perfections in their highest degree which we
admire in His creatures. God has manifested His love towards us
chiefly in this, that He sent His only-begotten Son to earth for our
salvation. Christ Himself says : " God so loved the world as to give
His only-begotten Son" (John iii. 16). He did not send Him to
live on earth in regal state, but as a lowly servant; not to live and die
as an ordinary man, but to live a life of privation and persecution
and to die the death of the cross. God gave His well-beloved Son.
The fewer children parents have, the more fondly do they generally
love them, and they dote upon an only child. How intense must
have been the love of God for His only-begotten Son, yet He gave
Him for our redemption ! " Thou didst deliver up the Son, O Lord,"
exclaims St. Augustine, " to save the servant ! " Thus St. John admonishes us : " Let us love God, because God first hath loved us " (1
John iv. 19). Moreover God continually bestows benefits upon us;
all in which we take pleasure comes from Him. Life, health, our
daily bread, the clothes we wear, the roof that shelters us, all are His
gifts. " Every best gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming
down from the Father of lights" (Jas. i. 17). "What hast thou, O
man, that thou hast not received ? " (1 Cor. iv. 17.) The uninterrupted possession of these blessings has unfortunately the effect of
making us think light of them. It were well for us therefore to
contemplate the lot of those who are deprived of them, e.g., the blind,
the sick, the destitute; we should then see how favored we are in
comparison with these afflicted ones, and our love of God would be
come greater. Children love those to whom they owe their being,
and so in a certain measure do the brute beasts. He, therefore, who
does not love his Creator is worse than the brutes. The very fact
that we owe our existence to God lays us under the obligation of
loving Him above all things.
2. Our love of God is chiefly manifested by thinking of Him
constantly, by avoiding whatever might separate us from Him, by
laboring to promote His glory, and willingly accepting all that
comes from His hand.
It is an error to imagine that the love of God is merely affective,
a certain delight or joy we experience in God. It is rather an act of
the understanding and of the will. Man recognizes God to be the
supreme Good, and esteems Him above all creatures. This esteem
causes him to strive to attain to the possession of this sovereign Good,
by avoiding sin and leading a godly life. The love of God shows
itself more in deeds than in feelings. The love of God is called a
holy or supernatural love. It is to be distinguished from purely
natural affection, such as that of a parent for his child, as well as
from sensual affection, which chiefly regards the body.
1. He who loves God thinks of Him continually, delights
in speaking of Him, and of hearing others talk of Him.
Love consists in striving after something, in order to be united to
it. Hence it comes that one s thoughts dwell incessantly with the
object of our affections. " Where thy treasure is, there is thy heart
also" (Matt. vi. 21). He who truly loves God performs all his
actions with the good intention of giving Him glory. So the course
of a ship may be directed towards different points of the compass,
yet the magnetic needle always points to the North. He who loves
God utters ejaculatory prayers amid all his occupations, such as these:
" Jesus, my God, I love Thee above all things " ; " All to the greater
glory of God " ; " My God and my all." " The time," says St. Bernard, " in which we do not think of God, is time lost." He who
loves God delights in talking of divine things. " Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh " (Matt. xii. 34). He also loves
to hear others speak of God : " He that is of God, heareth the words
of God" (John viii. 47).
2. He who loves God avoids sin, and does not allow his
heart to cling to the possessions and joys of e.arth.
He who loves God flies from sin because sin separates him from
God. Our Lord says : " If any man love Me, he will keep My word "
(John xiv. 23). He who loves God is afraid of offending Him, rather
than of His chastisements; for where love is, there is no chastisement to be dreaded. " Perfect charity casteth out fear " (1 John iv.
18). One who is inflamed with the love of God lays aside all desire
for earthly possessions and enjoyments; the love of God and the love
of the world cannot co-exist in the human heart.
3. He who loves God rejoices to labor for the glory of God.
The love of God excites in us the desire that He should be better
known and loved by men, and thereby glorified. Zeal is the outcome
of love : " Where there is no zeal there is no love," says St. Augustine.
One who loves God is grieved, nay, indignant, when God is offended ;
Moses in his anger threw the stone tables of the law to the ground
when he saw the people worshipping the golden calf. On the other
hand those who love God rejoice when He is honored ; they spare no
exertion to bring wanderers back to Him. Consider what hardships
the apostles and missioners endured in evangelizing heathen lands;
or what St. Monica did for her erring son, Augustine. The love of
God is the motive which actuates the angels in their care of us ; and
which makes us pray : " Hallowed be Thy name."
4. He who loves God gives God thanks for the benefits He
confers, and bears willingly the sufferings He lays upon him.
If we really love God, all that comes from His hand will be welcome, whether it be pleasant or painful. If we receive favors from
Him, we must do as Noe did when he came out of the Ark (Gen.
viii. 20) ; as the three young men in the furnace of Babylon (Dan.
iii. 51 seq.) ; or the leper Our Lord healed (Luke xvii. 16), and not be
forgetful of our Benefactor, by omitting night prayers, or grace
before meals. One should be thankful for the smallest gifts, for in
gratitude betokens an unfeeling heart. Moreover the* sufferings
God sends should also be cheerfully accepted. Witness Job and St.
Paul, who abounded with joy in all tribulation (2 Cor. vii. 4). The
apostles and martyrs met death with gladness ; St. Teresa said : " To
suffer or to die." The heart that loves God loves the cross also ; the
greater our desire to suffer and be humbled for the sake of God, the
greater is our love for Him ; so say the saints.
5. He who loves God loves his neighbor also.
Every one that loves the Creator, loves the creatures that He has
made. He loves his neighbor because he sees Our Lord in his person;
this Christ Himself tells us (Matt. xxv. 40). He does not love the just
only, he loves the sinner as well; for while we hate sin, because it
is hateful in God's sight, we should love the sinner. We should only
hate the evil spirits and the reprobate, whom God hates with an eternal hatred.
3. We must love God with all our faculties, and above all
things else in the whole world.
We must love God with a special, a superexcellent love. Christ
does not merely command us to love God, but to love Him with all
our heart and mind and soul and strength. " The true measure of
our love to God," says St. Francis of Sales, " is to love Him without
measure."
We love God with all our strength if we refer all to Him;
all our thoughts, words, and deeds.
Our first thought on rising in the morning should be of God,
and of Him we should think in all we do during the day. All that is
beautiful in creation should remind us of the glory of the Creator.
To him who loves God all nature speaks in a voice inaudible to the
world at large, but intelligible to his ear.
We love God more than anything else in the world, if we
are ready to give up everything unhesitatingly, if such be His
will.
God is, in fact, our final end; creatures are only means to the
attainment of this end. Hence it is incumbent upon us to sacrifice
them all in order to possess Him. We must be prepared to give up
our bodily life, like the three Babylonian youths; we must be pre
pared to leave our relatives, as Abraham did ; nay more, a father must
even sacrifice his only son, as Abraham sacrificed Isaac, if God re
quire this of him. God may be compared to the pearl of great price,
to buy which a man must sell all that he hath (Matt, xiii. 46). God
tries the just to see if he loves Him more than this passing
world; yet He often contents Himself with our good will, and does
not take from us the beloved object, if we are ready to give it up to
Him. He who is unduly cast, down by afflictions does not love God
above all; nor he who omits any good work from motives of human
respect, for he esteems the favor of men more than the favor of
God.
One may love creatures, but only for God's sake.
We may only take pleasure in creatures in so far as they are conducive to the service of the Most High. The Creator ought to be
loved in His creatures, not the creatures in themselves. God calls
Himself a jealous God (Exod. xx. 5), because He cannot tolerate our
loving anything which interferes with our love for Him. He must
reign supreme in our hearts, or hold no place in them at all (St.
Francis of Sales). Because the patriarch Jacob was too fond of his
youngest son, Joseph, He took him from him for a time, and He did
the same with Benjamin. So He acts towards us now. Christ says:
"He that loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of
Me" (Matt. x. 37). St. Augustine says: "He loves God too little
who loves anything besides God ; unless indeed he loves it out of love
to God."
