I read an excellent rather old but thought provoking article by Gilbert Meilaender in the February 2022 edition of First Things magazine, under the title “Reunion of the Far Shore.” He addressed the desire Christians have to be with love-ones who have died. He wrote:
“What should be apparent is that thinking about our desire for reunion on the far shore directs us to add a problem at the heart of Christian life. How are we to hold together—to live together—the two great commands, to love both God and our neighbor? Clearly, if we think of God chiefly exists to satisfy our desires and make us happy, we are hardly loving him above all else. Moreover, it is hard to deny much in our loves and desires are misshapen and distorted, and that they often need not to be satisfied but to be redirected and perfected.”
He's right. What are Christ’s two great commandments. We find them in in Matthew 22:37-40, when Jesus responds to a pharisee who tested Him by asking what is the greatest commandment? Jesus responded, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
Out of our love for God should pour gigantic love for our neighbour and ourselves. Only in having a healthy self-love or self-concept, are we capable of properly loving others. I’m not talking about having inflated egos or conceit or a deluded sense of self grandeur; I’m referring to a self-awareness that we have being endowed with since our beginning with the indelible image of God, and that we are loved with unfathomable love by Him.
The closer a person draws to God, the more he becomes aware of his own inadequacies and sin and distorted state of being. Like Peter falling at Jesus’ feet, we are tempted to ask the Lord to depart from us because the blazing holy light of His presence exposes our darkness and sin, our unholiness. He is perfect as we should be.[1] The light of His perfection, makes us turn away in shame.
I dare not delude myself to think that becoming perfect is possible in this life, only the next, even though Jesus said to be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect. (Matthew 5.48). The Apostle James wrote “We all stumble in many ways. Anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect and able to keep their whole body in check."2 Church tradition holds that James was the half-brother of Jesus (Matthew 13:55; Mark 6:3; Galatians 1:19).
I’ve fallen short of the mark so often, it could fill volumes to chronicle my failings. One of my faults—sins, has been misplaced love that has focussed of my family, at the expense of my love for God. I am guilty of breaking the 1st Commandment, for that I have confessed my sin.
Mark
[1] Cf. Leviticus 19:2, Deuteronomy 18:13, 2Samuel 22:31, 2Corinthians 7:1, Philippians 3:12.
[2] James 3:2.
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