God loves all of us equally?

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Jesus loved one of his disciples (John, Jn 13:23) best. Maybe that sheds some light on your question?
 
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That’s great point, thank you. I hadn’t even considered that.
 
Perhaps the humble soul has more capacity to receive love.
 
If Jesus loved “most” one disciple than would that not mean that He has preferences or does that mean John was more open to His love. But it seems even if John was more open to receive His love it remains a separate matter and the matter of Jesus having a preference remains. I think anyway.
 
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We know during the time of Noah that God was angry and he regretted creating us. We know Jesus died for sinners, but I doubt we will ever fully understand the meaning about the love of God, other than it is awesome.
 
The bottom line is that each of us will be perfectly happy in heaven. We have to try and remember things don’t operate in heaven like they do here and the things we might do to try and succeed here aren’t what God is looking for. We can’t approach it as we would a promotion at our job. 🙂
 
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I understand, I just wonder because I thought there were s rupture verses that show He lives is the same in a collective sense and other scripture where Jesus loves John more. So that opens up the possibility of even favorites. And then St Augustine thinks it too.
Thanks all for your responses.
 
Saint Therese, also, asked why some souls appear to be more favored:

Saint Therese rightly asserted that individual souls are different, with small simple souls scattered amongst great souls contributing towards making a glorious and colourful garden .

“I wondered for a long time why God has preferences, why all souls do not receive an equal amount of graces. I was surprised when I saw Him shower extraordinary favours on saints who had offended Him. For instance Saint Paul and Saint Augustine…I was puzzled at seeing how our Lord was pleased to caress certain ones from the cradle to the grave…helping them with such favours that they were unable to soil the immaculate beauty of their baptismal robe. I wondered why poor savages died in such numbers without ever having heard the name of God pronounced. Jesus deigned to teach me this mystery.

He set before me the book of nature; I understood how all the flowers He created are beautiful, how the splendour of the rose and the whiteness of the lily do not take away the perfume of the little violet or the delightful simplicity of the daisy. …If all flowers wanted to be roses, nature would lose her springtime beauty, and the fields would no longer be decked out with little wild flowers. And, so it is with the world of souls, Jesus’ garden. He willed to create great souls comparable to lilies and roses, but He has created smaller ones and these must be content to be daisies or violets destined to give joy to God’s glances when He looks down at His feet. Perfection consists in doing His will, in being what He wills us to be.” (Story of a Soul)
 
I’m having trouble understanding your argument. Do you think that God gave Mary grace over and above any other created being out of pure justice?
 
Eric_Hyom said:
When Jesus spent his time on Earth, he was commanded to love all his neighbours as he loves himself
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Where do you get this from? I don’t think it is accurate. We’re supposed to love God above all else. I can only assume that God Himself would do the same.
 
If the Good Doctor (I think that’s a clever name) said that, then I would have to disagree. It’s my belief that God loves all of us equally, yet how “happy” or “pleased” He is with us will differ, depending on whether we abide in Him or not.
 
MarthaSo said:
So you agree with Aquinas? I have to read his actual words. Thank you for your response.
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St. Thomas Aquinas writes in the S.T.:
I answer: since to love is to will good for something, there are two ways in which one thing may be loved more or less than another.
  • First, the act of the will may be more or less intense. God does not love some things more than others in this sense, because he loves all things by the same simple act of will, which is always of the same degree.
  • Secondly, the good which is willed for something may be more or less. We are said to love one thing more than another when we will a greater good for it, even if the will is not more intense.
Now we are bound to say that God loves some things more than others in this latter sense. For we said in the preceding article that his love is the cause of the goodness in things, and hence one thing would not be better than another, if God did not love one thing more than another.
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http://www.ccel.org/ccel/aquinas/nature_grace.vi.v.iii.html
 
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I half-agree. Humility is a virtue, though, which means that it perfected through practise. That implies to me that there is some merit-component to it, rather than just pure grace.
 
“God loves each one of us as if there was only one of us to love.” St. Augustine
 
Which relates back to St. Thomas’s point, by implying that His intensity of love is the same for all, but the end goal for that love is not.
 
I heard it explained that some people need more attention/love from God than others.

Say you had a wayward sister who was always getting into trouble and desperately needed that extra attention from your parents. You are more independent and you are know your parents love you. Would you begrudge your parents time and affection being spent on your sister?
 
MarthaSo said:
But then I think of my children (May God protect all of our children’s faith) and I realize that my selfish way of hoping He would like me more for my devotion to him at a high cost, would take away from His love of them if they decide not to follow the faith. And I love my children too much to feel comfortable wanting that anymore.

And then I’m back to thinking of that horrible manipulative woman who literally is evil and that God loves her just as much as St. Therese and our Blessed Mother!
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Well, keep in mind that God knows how much whatever we do is due not to our devotion, but to God’s grace.

God loves the worst of us enough to have died for us. Perhaps the question is not how much God loves us (which is beyond measure) but how much our love is like God’s. Do we see some great sinner and thirst that this person become a saint? If we could make them a saint, would we sacrifice to see that happen even as they sought to stamp us out? Is this not what God did for each of us?

The track to be on is not to compare God’s love for us with God’s love for someone else. The track to be on is to compare the manner in which we devote ourselves and the manner in which God is devoted. The track to be on is not to attract more love, but to be a pupil, to learn to love as God loves. Then we will not begrudge the sinner who is made a saint, falling into an ungrateful bitterness over whether the goat we did not get measures up to the fatted calf that welcomes the return of the wayward, as did the brother of the prodigal son. In the state we are meant to be in, we will instead see the one who returns as a great victory, as the very generous father in that story did. Is this not what the angels do when one sinner is reclaimed? Why not us?

Oh, how God thirsts for that lost soul, that hardened woman who cannot ever know the love that we know!! We ought to thirst for her, too, that she might join our happy condition in just wanting to be made to the saints God intends us to be. Oh, when that happens, we will have too much joy to want anything but that the world have more love in it, don’t you think?
 
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Socrates92 said:
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Eric_Hyom:
When Jesus spent his time on Earth, he was commanded to love all his neighbours as he loves himself
Click to expand...
Where do you get this from? I don’t think it is accurate. We’re supposed to love God above all else. I can only assume that God Himself would do the same.
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Agreed, I should have said that Jesus would have lived by the greatest commandments to love God the Father with all his heart, soul, mind and strength and to love his neighbours as he loves himself. He could do nothing greater here on earth.

But would Jesus have loved all his neighbours in the same way? would he have shown preference?
 
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