You shall love your neighbour as yourself
Last Monday, at our weekly prayer meeting, this statement of Jesus caused quite a stir Mark 12: 28-34 ‘The second is this: You shall love your neighbour as yourself’ Apparently persons have much less difficulty ‘loving God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength’.
It is so much easier for us to claim we love God than to face the test of loving a neighbour. Indeed, loving God, whom we cannot see, can feel safer and more comfortable than loving those around us, who might challenge us, irritate us, or even hurt us.
Loving our neighbor requires humility, patience, and the willingness to look beyond ourselves to see the worth and dignity in others, despite their imperfections. At the meeting, we realized that loving a neighbor involves tangible acts of kindness, forgiveness, understanding and compassion—things that demand more than words or intentions.
It calls us to step out of our comfort zones, putting aside our prejudices, grievances, and judgments. This teaching, though difficult, reminded us that our love for God is truly reflected in how we treat others, and perhaps this is what makes it such a powerful commandment.
There is a tendency in all of us to see ourselves closer to perfection and to God than our co-worker, other members of our faith community, other family members, the people next door or further down the street. Carl Jung, the great psychologist, refers to this as the 'shadow'—the parts of ourselves we don't want to see or acknowledge.
Jung believed that we project these unaccepted flaws and weaknesses onto others, often judging them for the very things we struggle with internally. This tendency blinds us to our own imperfections and creates barriers to genuine connection and empathy.
When we see ourselves as closer to perfection than others, we become less compassionate, less forgiving, and more isolated. In recognizing our own 'shadow,' however, we are humbled and reminded that we are all on a journey, imperfect and in need of grace. This self-awareness helps us to see others with more understanding and to embrace the call to love our neighbors as ourselves.
To avoid this negative attitude we must stop and practice self-reflection, limit negative mental comparisons and adopt a practice of searching out other’s strengths. When we become aware of our superior attitude and being critical of others, pray for humility, acknowledging that we are fallible and reliant on grace.
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