Christian Love: Why Selfishness and “Stinking Thinking” Make Us Miserable
Christian love is the key of Catholic spirituality. Our first calling is to love God with our whole hearts, mind and soul and to love our neighbor as ourselves. But it’s too easy to relegate love to a broad, vapid sense of well-being while still remaining selfish and self-centered at heart.
My “favorite flavor” of selfishness is self pity and self pampering. What’s yours?
Christian Love is More than Feelings of Good Will
To truly love as Jesus calls us to is to make a firm choice to put God and other people before ourselves. The fullness of Christian love is actually to pour ourselves out as gifts for others. Now how exactly am I doing that when I’m obsessing over all the things that go wrong in my life, or when I’m letting myself get fat and out of shape because I “deserve” a treat?
Christian writer Joyce Meyer shares her own journey out of self-centeredness when she was hit by what I like to call a “Holy 2 x 4.” Her story “Learning to Love Like Jesus” is a great example of how the blinders can come off when grace touches us.
As Vatican II and Saint Pope John Paul II remind us, man only truly finds himself in a gift of self. If you want to find true happiness and fulfillment, the one sure path is Christian love.