What is the difference between Pride and Love of self?

[james_neville]

I hope this is in the right forum. I have heard it said by many different priests that a person should not only love God and neighbour but also one must have a love of themselves. I was wondering what the difference is between this and Pride since there seems to be something that i am missing in relation to the distinction between the two concepts.

Thanks in advanced

 

[WoundedIcon]

Love of self: I’m pretty good with computers.

Pride: These morons think there’s an “any” key!

 

[Patrick1540]

I hope this is in the right forum. I have heard it said by many different priests that a person should not only love God and neighbour but also one must have a love of themselves. I was wondering what the difference is between this and Pride since there seems to be something that i am missing in relation to the distinction between the two concepts.

Thanks in advanced

Love of self: is realizing God’s love for you. You are a Finger print of God and only you can fulfill the Will of the Father for your life.All this is accomplished through Jesus Christ and the gifts the Holy Spirit gives you,specially through Sacramental life.God is center and focus of it all.Charity(Perfect Love) of what God created.

Pride: Self centered,ego that you can accomplish these things by yourself and your own efforts.Your efforts can bring Charity in your life.

 

[fhansen]

Pride is to assert ones importance and superiority above others. Love of self is, simply, love of self.

 

[Robert_Sock]

I see them as being mostly the same. The old self is to be despised, and killed off so a new self in Christ is born. Fill the new self with the passion of Christ, and self love and pride will disappear.

Watch out for self worship!

 

[DaveBj]

Some good differentiations coming out. Here’s my take:

Pride = thinking I’m really hot stuff.

Love of self – this takes some explanation of the word “love.” In this case, the Greek word agape would be involved, which means basically wanting the best for the object of one’s love. So, love of self = wanting the best for myself, which means wanting to get as close to God as I possibly can.

 

[fred_conty]

True self love is doing God’s will.
False self love is doing one’s own will.

True pride acknowledges one’s accomplishments as dependent on God and others.
False pride is seeing accomplishments as dependent on self alone.

Every vice envolves self centeredness.
Every virtue envolves God and others.

Just some thoughts.

 

[james_neville]

So in that sense, do you think that it would be prideful to be competitive? since to be competitive, you are looking to be better than others?

 

[jcrichton]

I hope this is in the right forum. I have heard it said by many different priests that a person should not only love God and neighbour but also one must have a love of themselves. I was wondering what the difference is between this and Pride since there seems to be something that i am missing in relation to the distinction between the two concepts.

Thanks in advanced

Hi, James!

…when queried about the most important Commandment Jesus stated that the 1st is to Love Gove above all and that the 2nd was quite similarly important: Love your neighbor as yourself… this Love Jesus is speaking of is termed Agape… the world usually use the term eros… so when Scriptures speak of Love it is meant in the Agape term… Love then becomes not a means to vice or caprice:

4 Love is always patient and kind; love is never jealous; love is not boastful or conceited, 5 it is never rude and never seeks its own advantage, it does not take offence or store up grievances. 6 Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but finds its joy in the truth. 7 It is always ready to make allowances, to trust, to hope and to endure whatever comes. 8 Love never comes to an end. (1 Corinthians 13:4-8a)

Love is different from pride because pride is based on ego (what, how much, how many, how long…); pride reduces everything to a selfish gain or value… it can both build and destroy at the blink of an eye and change sides just as quickly… it has no limits… and the only outcome is self-gratification/empowerment… we can see this at work daily even in the Church as people measure each other and even the Priest who is offering the Holy Sacrifice (Mass)–since it can be quite subtle, I believe that Satan uses this particular vice to tempt (and erode) even the clerics and religious–convincing them, as he did Eve, that they are merely standing for their “rights” (or that of others)… when we look deep into it we find that pride, when taken to its extremes, is the very opposite of Love (chek Lucifer’s Fall: Apocalypse 12).

Maran atha!

Angel

 

[jcrichton]

So in that sense, do you think that it would be prideful to be competitive? since to be competitive, you are looking to be better than others?

You can be proud for your achievements… basically an achievement means that you have done something to the best of your capabilities… you begin to enter into extreme pride when you believe that you are better than others for your achievements or station in life… say you are an excellent swimmer… you beat 200 people on a Life Guard post… you must be proud of yourself (no problem, you love who you are); say, you taunt me (very poor swimmer) and you continue to throw it on my face… you’ve started the walk away from Love (Agape) to pride’s extremes… say we have common friends… you contact as many of them as possible not only to give them the good news of your job but also to put me down as many times as you can (as the audience allows)… you are entering in the destructive extreme of pride… say you found out that someone had video/phone taped the contest and you are not satisfied with your skills being memoralized on the internet… but you edit the portion where it shows how slow or incompetent I was and you enhance the view and plaster it on the net sending a link to everyone we know and the world at large… your pride has achieved both your destruction (absence of Love) and mine (emotional/social); Love would have impeded you from resorting to such vile acts; Love would allow you to feel proud for your accomplishment while attempting to encourage me or even offer to help me improve my skills.

Maran atha!

Angel

 

[james_neville]

Love would allow you to feel proud for your accomplishment while attempting to encourage me or even offer to help me improve my skills.

Maran atha!

Angel

This makes a lot of sense, thank you for your eloquent answer

 

[faithster]

Pride means narcissistic arrogance and self righteousness (I.e. one’s sense of right and wrong is superior than that of others and are thus very judgmental and impose hypocritical double standards). These people feel they are entitled to doing whatever they want whether good or bad because they are special and diva like. They lie by telling secrets and acting deceptive. Lie means do not let someone know the truth and the facts. Hence secrets and deceptions.

Love of one’s self means confidence, assertiveness, but humility and compassion that all people are sinful and make mistakes. They are honest enough to show their strengths and weaknesses and have no secrets or deceptions no matter how hurtful the truth.