Are Catholics required to love God more than to love all else?

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I know that Catholics should love God. But, are Catholics required to love God more than to love all else? Is it a sin to love something else as much as to love God or more than to love God? If it is, is it a mortal sin or a venial sin?
 
“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind: and thy neighbour as thyself.”

“Thou shalt not have strange gods before me.”

Loving anything more than God would be a mortal sin.
 
Was considering that exact quote. Great minds…

Blessings,
Stephie
 
zhoudu said:
I know that Catholics should love God. But, are Catholics required to love God more than to love all else? Is it a sin to love something else as much as to love God or more than to love God? If it is, is it a mortal sin or a venial sin?
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It’s very difficult for people to love God, whom they don’t see, more than their family and friends whom they do see. It’s only when we come to realize that God’s love is coming to us through their love, that we begin to be grateful for and begin to feel God’s love more.
 
Yes, we are required to love God above all else. You might try the workaround that I often use - you love God in the person, pet, song, mountain, lake, etc etc etc. (I hope it is at least something that does contain a glimmer, reflection of Christ, his grace.) For a long time, I felt like a bit of a cheat with this one, but I have prayed on it - and lost some of these things - and I can honestly say I think I loved God in them, not them for themselves. Who knows. Good luck.
 
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Well yes of course. But it’s really not a difficult thing to process if you look at it literally.

If I love my mother; it is as a result of who, what and where she is in my life. A physical experience.

God on the other hand is the very reason I can love her at all to begin with. His nature is all of goodness, truth and love made manifest in the universe that exists.

So it’s entirety impossible not to love God above all. Because without God it would be impossible to love anyone in the first place.
 
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Stay on target. Stay on target! :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:
 
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The Act of Contrition
O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins, because I dread the loss of heaven and the pains of hell, but most of all because they offend Thee, my God , who art all good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve with the help of thy grace to confess my sins, to do penance, and to amend my life.
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He is deserving of all our love. Sin is loving something more than God. It is preferring our will to His. Whether it is mortal or venial depends on the sin.
 
God is goodness itself, so loving God is loving goodness. That’s the way I look at it. If you love goodness (God) with all your heart, mind and soul, then you are able to love your neighbors, which I think is suggested in Matthew 22:39.
 
Yes, we are required to love God more than to love all else. That’s why I confess that I have sinned against the First Commandment almost every time I go to Confession. I never completely keep this Commandment, I just don’t always remember to confess the sin or can’t think of a solid example of the sin.
 
zhoudu said:
I know that Catholics should love God. But, are Catholics required to love God more than to love all else? Is it a sin to love something else as much as to love God or more than to love God? If it is, is it a mortal sin or a venial sin?
Click to expand...
It’s a goal. And when people are honest it’s a goal most will admit they haven’t yet attained. And that particular goal defines justice for man; the more we love God the more just or righteous we are-the more in line we are with the order of the universe IOW. And it’s the very goal we’re here to learn, as we struggle, with the help of grace, to overcome the temptations to love other, inferior, created things to the one thing which is truly deserving of that love above all else, the Creator of all good things: Goodness Himself.

The more we know God the more we love Him; that’s unavoidable, but it’s a process, of Him doing a work of transformation; its impossible to know and love that way by our own efforts.
 
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zhoudu said:
I know that Catholics should love God. But, are Catholics required to love God more than to love all else? Is it a sin to love something else as much as to love God or more than to love God? If it is, is it a mortal sin or a venial sin?
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A lot of great responses already. One thing I like to keep in mind is

Matthew 25:40 And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.’

Some people tend to rack their brain wondering if they are loving God enough. It’s not really that difficult to love God more. He actually makes it quite easy for us.

If you are loving your neighbor then you are loving God.

If you are honoring your parents then you are loving God.

If you are caring for you children then you are loving God.

I think you see were I’m going with this. Basically, we have 1 point neighbor, 1 point parents, 1 point children and 3 points God.

Now that being said even loving pizza can be a point for God. However, if you have a pizza on your right and a person drowning on your left and you choose the pizza. That would be a sin (-1 God). Also, I believe if you have to do something sinful in order to honor God, I don’t think that would count either.

Now that being said, I want everyone to know I don’t believe God is sitting up in heaven with an adding machine and unless we tally up 100 points God we don’t get in.

God makes it easy Love God and love neighbor. If you do these God will always be the one receiving the most of your love.

God Bless
 
In one of St. Catherine of Siena’s letters she says that every sin is simply disordered love, the prime example being the love of creatures/things more than the love of God.
 
Yes, we must love God above all else, in the sense that we must not prefer a mere creature in his place.

But this doesn’t necessarily mean we have to have an explicit understanding of God as the object of our love, since yes, it is hard to imagine him. It’s not like we have to have a picture in our minds “Oh God, I love you,” as we think of an old man with a long beard. Rather, God is being itself. He is Love itself. When we choose love, when we choose to love others, when we choose to live in accordance with reality and our nature and respond to His grace, we are choosing God.
 
EVERYONE ought to Love God [there Creator and the One who sustains there very lives MORE than anyone and anything.

God 1st
Family 2nd
everything and everyone else below those 1st 2
 
Yes, to not do so would be to be guilty of idolatry/violating the first Commandment.

Now the long time goal is loving Him with ALL our hearts, minds, and souls.
 
zhoudu said:
I know that Catholics should love God. But, are Catholics required to love God more than to love all else? Is it a sin to love something else as much as to love God or more than to love God? If it is, is it a mortal sin or a venial sin?
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That’s right from scripture

Mt 22:36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.”

Lk 14: 26 “If any one comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. 27 Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple.

As an aside,

When that passage from Luke says hate, the word in Greek is μισέω which means to love less http://bibleapps.com/greek/3404.htm and that goes with what He said in Matthew where God is loved first over and above everyone and everything. The hierarchy of love is God first, everything else comes after that.
 
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