To
love your neighbors as yourself. Jesus
starts with a reference to self-love.
Self-love is not something taught to you. It comes naturally. We long for food, we long for the comfort of
a home, you want people to like you, you want protection and security, you want
to be happy, you want to be healthy, you want to be warm in the cold. This is self-love and it is something inborn
and natural to us. Jesus used this
inborn and human quality in us to teach us how to love our neighbor. Love your neighbor as yourself. As you love yourself, love your neighbor. As you long for food when you
are hungry, so you should also long to feed your neighbor when he is
hungry. As you long for the comfort of a
home, so also long and work for the comfort of a home for your neighbor. You want to be happy, so you should also want
for your neighbors to be happy. You
desire to be healthy, so desire that your neighbors may become healthy. In the same way that you work for your own
happiness and satisfaction, so also work for the happiness and satisfaction of
your neighbor. For as you love
yourself, you should also love your neighbor.
You
will notice later on, however, that the love for others becomes a threat for the
love of self. It can be true for when we begin to work for the happiness of
others, we may end up working for the happiness of others instead of working for
our own happiness. When we begin working
for the comfort of our neighbor, we may end up end up working for their comfort
instead of working for our comfort. In
seeking the happiness of others, we may sometimes fail to seek our own. Kon kaisa amo ini ang nagakatabo –
nagakalipat na kita sang aton kaugalingon, indi bala? This is shown in the example of the
saints. Si St. Maximillian Kolbe, si San
Roque, si St. Aloysius Gonzaga. Many times, bisan matuod nga ang ginhalinan
sang paghigugma sa iban nagsugod sa paghigugma sa kaugalingon, later, loving
the neighbor becomes the very threat that will kill our self-love.
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