Great insight, and I’m surprised it reads as new to me! Thank you. That last stage is such a deep one.
For your point about where love of others fits in, I wonder if it comes more at the penultimate stage or after the last, or is mixed in with the negotiation with self love. Here’s the saint on love of others, courtesy of an Instagram account (Totus Tuus Apostolate):
“It is not possible to love your neighbor unless you love God. If you love God first, then you can love your neighbor in God… If we really love God, we will love what belongs to God. We will love in the same manner as we have been loved. We care about others even as Christ cared. we love the Lord not because he has been good to us, but because the Lord is good.”
I’ve been thinking about it for a while, and at the moment I’m inclined to propose a tentative expanded schema something like this:
0. acceptance of love of others (before we even begin to love or even know ourselves, we start as infants with the experience of being loved by others; I think this is a necessary foundation even for selfish self-love)
1. in some order, love of self and of others for the self’s sake (I’m not sure we can distinguish a precedence or ranking between an infant’s instinctive love of its mother and/or other caregivers and its instinctive love of self)
2. in some order, love of others for their own sake and love of God for the self’s sake (I suspect that the order here may differ with the person and their experiences growing up)
3. love of God for God’s sake
4. in some order, love of others and of the self for God’s sake (this is the ordering I am least sure of; it may be that love of others for God’s sake could actually precede 3. love of God for his own sake … although I’m inclined to think not?
What a haunting and troubling question! I think the road for them has to begin with learning to accept the love of others. Perhaps for all of us, as infants, that is the real first stage: acceptance of the love of others for our own sake. Then we learn to love ourselves for our own sake, and then to love others for their own sake.
Great insight, and I’m surprised it reads as new to me! Thank you. That last stage is such a deep one.
For your point about where love of others fits in, I wonder if it comes more at the penultimate stage or after the last, or is mixed in with the negotiation with self love. Here’s the saint on love of others, courtesy of an Instagram account (Totus Tuus Apostolate):
“It is not possible to love your neighbor unless you love God. If you love God first, then you can love your neighbor in God… If we really love God, we will love what belongs to God. We will love in the same manner as we have been loved. We care about others even as Christ cared. we love the Lord not because he has been good to us, but because the Lord is good.”
Thanks, D.A.
I’ve been thinking about it for a while, and at the moment I’m inclined to propose a tentative expanded schema something like this:
0. acceptance of love of others (before we even begin to love or even know ourselves, we start as infants with the experience of being loved by others; I think this is a necessary foundation even for selfish self-love)
1. in some order, love of self and of others for the self’s sake (I’m not sure we can distinguish a precedence or ranking between an infant’s instinctive love of its mother and/or other caregivers and its instinctive love of self)
2. in some order, love of others for their own sake and love of God for the self’s sake (I suspect that the order here may differ with the person and their experiences growing up)
3. love of God for God’s sake
4. in some order, love of others and of the self for God’s sake (this is the ordering I am least sure of; it may be that love of others for God’s sake could actually precede 3. love of God for his own sake … although I’m inclined to think not?
This is beautiful, logical, and to me, obviously true. But I feel concern for the people who lack even selfish self love. How can they begin?
What a haunting and troubling question! I think the road for them has to begin with learning to accept the love of others. Perhaps for all of us, as infants, that is the real first stage: acceptance of the love of others for our own sake. Then we learn to love ourselves for our own sake, and then to love others for their own sake.