Love for God, Self, Others

In this life,  your love for God is bound together with your love of others—and these loves are bound together with your love of self.  You do not love God whom you cannot see unless you love your neighbor whom you can see (1 Jn 4:20).  And by God’s own commandment, you are to love your neighbor as you love yourself (Mt 19:19; 22:39).  When it comes to practical, real-life terms, fulfillment of God’s commandment to love begins with proper self-love.  In order to love God as he wills, you need to respect, esteem, and reverence yourself.

You increase your love of self by allowing yourself to realize, gradually and more deeply as the years go on, that God really loves you with love that has no end.  You are loved and you are lovable.  Whenever you try to acquire or deepen this attitude about yourself, you are cooperating with the grace of God.

You also increase your love for self by trying to deepen your understanding of those around you; by listening, and trusting; by loving and (what is more difficult) allowing yourself to be loved; by being truly forgiving and (what is most difficult) seeking true personal forgiveness; by widening your circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

There is a basic principle in the New Testament writings of Saint John that goes:  “Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God, and he who loves is born of God and knows God.  He who does not love does not know God; for God is love” (1 Jn 4:7-8).  You learn what love is by loving.  By loving you come to know God.

God is  Love. If we want to know God than we need to get to know His only begotten Son Jesus, the Light of the human race, Gods Word to us. God’s love for each of us is un-conditional, His love is not measured as we measure love as humans.  We have all been created in His own Image, meaning we have been created to Love as God loves us.  In the Parable of the Prodigal son Gods love is seen clearly. His son demands his father’s inheritance even before his father dies.  He leaves his father and sets out on a sinful lustful journey, taking everything that the world offers. When he spends his fortune and has nothing left he is reminded of his fathers love back home. Dejected he goes back home to a father waiting with open arms, not giving a damn about what his son has done, just happy that his son has seen the light of love and returned to his fathers arms.  God is our Father, our Creator who wants to give  to us what Jesus has always had. Our inheritance is waiting as adopted Children. To be with Him forever.

Catholic RIAC Treasures

. "Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.  God's love was
revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that
we might live through him.  In this is love, not that we loved God but that
he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.
Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another."
~John 4:8-11

 Chapter I. THE DESIRE FOR GOD

From:  The Handbook for Today's Catholic

27 The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to himself. Only in God will he find the truth and happiness he never stops searching for.

The dignity of man rests above all on the fact that he is called to communion with God. This invitation to converse with God is addressed to man as soon as he comes into being. For if man exists it is because God has created him through love, and through love continues to hold him in existence. He cannot live fully according to truth unless he freely acknowledges that love and entrusts himself to his creator.

28 In many ways, throughout history down to the present day, men have given expression to their quest for God in their religious beliefs and behavior: in their prayers, sacrifices, rituals, meditations, and so forth. These forms of religious expression, despite the ambiguities they often bring with them, are so universal that one may well call man a religious being:

From one ancestor [God] made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him - though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For "in him we live and move and have our being.

How can I know that God exists?
  From the book “We Believe”… A survey of the Catholic Faith

We Believe is a terrific resource weather you are new to the Catholic faith or if you are a life long Catholic. This book is all encompassing as far as the biblical materials, catechism, and writings of the early fathers of our faith.

By Father Lukefahr, c.m.
Excerpt From Chapter one

Our World and Our God

How did our universe come to be? When did life begin? Is there a God? Could everything have come from nothing? Is there meaning or purpose to life? How can we find true happiness? What happens to us when we die? These are the most basic questions that face us as human beings, and people have wondered about them for ages.

Ancient cave drawings and burial sites indicate that early humans believed in deities and in life after death. Today polls show that most human beings believe in god and in eternal life. But some people believe in no God, no purpose to life, and no life after death. We believe in God or in “nothing” as the Ultimate Reality. In spite of scientific advances, we still must “believe.”

 The Need to Believe (CCC 27-30)

Why must we believe? Some knowledge can be obtained through our senses or by scientific investigation. We don’t have to believe that apples are red. We can see that. We don’t have to believe that water is made up of two parts of hydrogen and one part of oxygen. We can establish that by scientific investigation.  

But the knowledge essential in life and the answers to questions about Ultimate Reality can be acquired only by faith. For example, psychologist say that to be happy we must love and be loved. We cannot prove scientifically that others love us. We’ll never be able to put love under a microscope, but we can see that believing in love is worthwhile because love enriches our lives. The emptiness of a loveless life and the joy of a love-filled life demonstrate that love is real.

So it is with faith in God. We can’t put God under a microscope. (if we could, God would be just a part of our limited material world) We can’t have scientific proof that God exists and is the origin of the universe. On the other hand, we can’t have scientific proof that nothing is behind the universe because we can’t put nothing under a microscope either! Ultimately, we must believe in God or Nothing.

If there were no God, all of this would have to come from nothing! All of its organization must be an accident! If we sometimes find it hard to believe in God, then we should try to believe in nothing. Believers in God are sometimes mocked with the notion that they are putting faith in a fairy tale. On the contrary, there is no fairy tale more incredible than the universe- infinite in its smallness and vastness, astonishing in its structure and organization,...could it come from nothing? The more we know of the magnificence of the universe, the more we are drawn to believe that it must have a Master Architect to design it and a Creator to build it. ,,,,,,,,,,,End