Lent 2013, XXV

XXV. The principle of non-competitiveness comes most directly into questions about relationships with fellow human beings. Our protestant brothers and sisters are afraid that in loving the saints, and especially the Virgin Mary, we will be tempted into idolatry. Some Catholics with overly spiritual tendencies fear that by cultivating close human relationships they will be tempted to forget their relationship with God. Both excesses are certainly possible, but not if we keep our first principle first, which is “To love the Lord Your God with your whole heart, your whole soul, and your whole strength.” Since God cannot be in competition with His creatures, and in fact identifies Himself so strongly with His children as to say, “whatever you did for them, you did for me”, it stands to reason that in loving any other human being we are loving Him. Even when I love myself, I am loving Him. When God is loved first, every human is loved for His sake, and every act of love, great or small, is an act of love for God. No one would suggest that if I hug my sister I have taken a hug away from my mother. In fact, my parents are most honored by love between their siblings. With God this reality goes even deeper. Whenever I hug another human with real love, I am hugging God, literally and in actual fact.