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souldiver
Guest
Love is the greatest as told by Jesus but what if it’s love for self?
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ClearWater
Guest
Depends on the circumstances. Can you give an example of what you mean by “self love”?
Do you mean not smoking or using drugs or something else?
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souldiver
Guest
For example you care, please, respect, have dreams or ambition for yourself.
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TxGodfollower
Guest
"For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. " Galatian 5:4
"So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. " Ephesians 5:28
Its ok to love yourself; what isn’t ok is to love yourself to the point of forgetting others (being selfish). Self respect is great to have, and it is important to take care of your physical body. Dreams and ambitions can be good or bad, depending on what they are. Doing things you like is the same, it depends on what the thing is to determine if it is good or bad.
"So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. " Ephesians 5:28
Its ok to love yourself; what isn’t ok is to love yourself to the point of forgetting others (being selfish). Self respect is great to have, and it is important to take care of your physical body. Dreams and ambitions can be good or bad, depending on what they are. Doing things you like is the same, it depends on what the thing is to determine if it is good or bad.
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ClearWater
Guest
Yeah, one can, and should, respect, care for oneself. One can have ambitions for oneself and dreams.
I guess it becomes bad if one somehow hurts oneself or others.
meltzerboy
New member
The famous statement from the Talmud by Hillel the Elder comes to mind: “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am for myself alone, what am I? And if not now, when?”
We should love and do for ourselves but not to the excessive extent that we don’t love and do for others.
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josh987654321
Guest
I believe self love is bad.
“self-love is the most deceitful of all enemies.” - St. Alphonsus
I believe it’s only when we begin to empty ourselves of our self love, that God begins to fill us with His pure love.
Jesus to St. Faustina
"True greatness of the soul is in loving God and in humility" (Diary 427).
St Faustina
I fervently beg the Lord to strengthen my faith, so that in my drab, everyday life I will not be guided by human disposition, but by those of the spirit. Oh, how everything drags man towards the earth! But lively faith maintains the soul in the highest regions and assigns self-love it’s proper place, that is to say, the lowest one. (210).
“As the soul continues to immerse itself more deeply into the abyss of its nothingness and need, God uses His omnipotence to exalt it. If there is a truly happy soul upon earth, it can only be a truly humble soul. At first, one’s self-love suffers greatly on this account, but after a soul has struggled courageously, God grants it much light by which it sees how wretched and full of deception everything is” (Diary 593).
Sacred Heart Image - (St Margaret-Mary Alacoque)
http://s7.postimg.org/4jx43bm1n/Christ_7.jpg
Jesus to St Margaret-Mary Alacoque -
**"Behold this Heart which has loved men so much that it has spared nothing, even to exhausting **(Crucifixion) and consuming itself (Last Supper, Eucharist) in order to testify to them it’s love."
I believe self love is a facade, it’s like winning a game of chess against yourself, what victory is there in that? in the same way, what actual love is there in self love?
Real love, the love of Christ, the highest of peaks, I believe is in loving (God and neighbour) and being loved (God) sometimes by neighbour but most importantly by God.
I hope this has helped
God Bless
Thank you for reading
Josh
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CyrilSebastian
Guest
In Henry V, William Shakespeare wrote:
Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin, as self-neglecting.
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josh987654321
Guest
I believe we cannot give away what we do not have, if we don’t have the love of God in our hearts, we cannot share it with out neigbours, thus I believe it’s important to work on ourselves in that regard, to grow in the knowledge and love of God, and this I don’t believe is self love.
God Bless
Thank you for reading
Josh
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souldiver
Guest
So self love is bad? Does this means God or Jesus never loved himself?
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powerofk
Guest
We were all created in the image and likeness of God. As such, we should respect ourselves and love ourselves. However… we must be careful, as self love can become selfish “love”, especially due to our fallen nature. We are called to love ourselves, yet we must love God above all other things, and so we must submit to His desires for us, as only by loving and following God can we truly love ourselves and our neighbors as ourselves. Without love for God, our self-love becomes selfish “love”. And the one who “loves” selfishly cannot love his/her neighbor as himself/herself but only for one’s own selfish desires.
So, to summarize - only when love of God is supreme can one truly love oneself and one’s neighbor as oneself. Without love of God, self-love is empty - and feeds selfish desires. Sin (and especially mortal sin) is the manifestation of selfish “love”. And selfish “love” is not love at all (this is why I put it in quotes - we call it love, but true love is not selfish at all - the best description of the qualities of true love is chapter 13 of St. Paul’s 1st letter to the Corinthians; the best example of true love is Jesus’s example; the truest example of discipleship is His mother, Mary).
So, to summarize - only when love of God is supreme can one truly love oneself and one’s neighbor as oneself. Without love of God, self-love is empty - and feeds selfish desires. Sin (and especially mortal sin) is the manifestation of selfish “love”. And selfish “love” is not love at all (this is why I put it in quotes - we call it love, but true love is not selfish at all - the best description of the qualities of true love is chapter 13 of St. Paul’s 1st letter to the Corinthians; the best example of true love is Jesus’s example; the truest example of discipleship is His mother, Mary).
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bsf
Guest
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souldiver
Guest
One thing that strike me is that you reminded me about the commandment “love your neighbor as much as yourself”; What if you don’t love yourself then, you can’t love your neighbor.
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phil_at_dayboro
Guest
Many things come down to one’s own interruptions of a Circumstance ,
Like you might think a particular lady may be obsessed with her own self appearance spending hours in front of a mirror , is that a case of loving herself to much ?
Her interpretation might be different to your own,
And a person that does not love themselves can’t be judged as not loving their neighbour ,
For they might not like there own appearance or there own personality traits ,
And still be respectful and caring to there neighbour ,
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souldiver
Guest
Yes, I think that’s real, I’m just relating my last post to the commandment.
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Viki63
Guest
If we can’t be compassionate to oneself, how can we have compassion on our neighbor?
True self love is to do one’s best, respect oneself and one;s neighbor, and focus most of our attention on doing the will of God.
True self love is to do one’s best, respect oneself and one;s neighbor, and focus most of our attention on doing the will of God.
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fhansen
Guest
Love of self is right and good, as is love for all of God’s good creation. It’s a natural, God-given orientation. But like all good things, self love can be twisted or perverted into something *less *than good, something out of line with its original intention. So Aquinas tells us that pride is “inordinate self love”.
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Agnessa
Guest
I believe there is nothing wrong with self-care in moderation - as in, getting enough sleep, eating well, care about one’s emotional well-being etc. Same with having dreams and ambitions.
What I do, however, find dangerous, is self-love as it is defined in much of the modern culture, popular self-help books specifically: basically, as self-obsession. This, to me, borders on pride and vanity more often than not.
What I do, however, find dangerous, is self-love as it is defined in much of the modern culture, popular self-help books specifically: basically, as self-obsession. This, to me, borders on pride and vanity more often than not.
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josh987654321
Guest
I believe it is. Love can only be found in a relationship of loving and being loved. I believe Self love robs us of this relationship and in turn actually robs us of love itself.
May I also ask what you mean by self love and what prompted you to ask the question?
You tell me:
Sacred Heart Image - (St Margaret-Mary Alacoque)
http://s7.postimg.org/4jx43bm1n/Christ_7.jpg
Jesus to St Margaret-Mary Alacoque -
**"Behold this Heart which has loved men so much that it has spared nothing, even to exhausting **(Crucifixion) and consuming itself (Last Supper, Eucharist) in order to testify to them it’s love."
How could self love, allow the King of kings, to be so humble as to wash the feet of His disciples and allow himself to be nailed to a cross?
I hope I have helped, please feel free to reply/refute anything I have said.
God Bless
Thank you for reading
Josh
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souldiver
Guest
It’s because I have self love, but I also want to love others and others love me. I think it’s important to have self in order to cultivate self and improve if you disregard certain religions which what I thought that only allows love for others.May I also ask what you mean by self love and what prompted you to ask the question?
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