Greetings:
My NAB (St. Joseph edition) has a footnote regarding the above passage from our Lord. It tells the reader that this is not really a
new commandment at all, but was first mentioned in Lv 19:18.
This is a rather amazing claim (that Jesus didn’t know what He was talking about). I went and read Lv 19:18 and I can tell you that it is not the same.
Loving someone as yourself is not the same as loving someone* as Jesus loved us*. There is no comparison…we can’t do it, but it is our daily struggle.
(Besides, some people don’t even love
themselves.)
This was truly a new commandment from our Lord.
Peace
Laudatur Iesus Christus.
The referenced footnote is in serious error, both by presumption and in the substance of what it says. To love as God loves is a much graver standard than to love as one loves oneself. The difference is between the love of self and the love of the Other within the Most Holy Trinity.
However, the danger in the phrase “we can’t do it, but it is our daily struggle” is also striking. This calls to mind the following teaching of the Holy Spirit and the Conciliar Fathers of Trent:
[N]o one ought to make use of that rash saying, one prohibited by the Fathers under an anathema, that the observance of the commandments of God is impossible for one that is justified. For God commands not impossibilities, but, by commanding, both admonishes thee to do what thou are able, and to pray for what thou art not able (to do), and aids thee that thou mayest be able; whose commandments are not heavy; whose yoke is sweet and whose burthen light. (Council of Trent, Decree on Justification, Chapter XI (1547).)
If any one saith, that the commandments of God are, even for one that is justified and constituted in grace, impossible to keep; let him be anathema. (Ibid., Canon XVIII.)
Recently, there is some tendency to excuse sin by the cliché, “we are only human.” Some say, “no one is perfect,” in seeming indifference to the Lord’s direct command “So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew (NAB) 5:48).
In this context, it might be useful to remember the Lord’s reassurance to the Apostles on the departure of the dispirited rich man: “But Jesus looked at them and said to them, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” (Matthew (RSV) 19:26; Cf. Mark 10:27; Luke 18:27.) Please note, this passage does not say “*for *God all things are possible;” rather, it says “*with *God,” which it explicitly opposes to “*with *men.”
God assists us constantly, with the training and assistance of religion, with the guidance of the Church, and in countless ways having to do with our circumstances, talents and personal faculties. If we cooperate with these graces, we are often able to succeed in expressing Christ’s love for the Father in our actions and thoughts.
In the heat of action and the stress of life, however, one may fail to express in his actions or intentions the perfect love for the Father which it is a Christian’s role to express as Christ’s instrument. Each gesture and action, each thought and omission has meaning in our constant prayer to the Father. However, when we fall short, the Lord has allowed us to amend our intentions, after reflection, through the operation of the Sacrament of Penance. This “so gentle and powerful a remedy for sins”* is the help that God has provided so that human weakness can be aided by Divine love, so that regardless of occasional garbling, our prayer to the Father may be pure and perfect when we offer it in the Holy Mass.
We are not “only human.” We are humans working with the assistance of God and, with that assistance, the commands of the Savior are well within our reach.
Divinum Auxilium maneat semper nobiscum.
John Hiner
*Father John A. Hardon, S.J., Father Hardon’s Catholic Prayer Book, (2000), Thanksgiving after Confession, page 129.
