Reflections On Self-Love
By ALICE VON HILDEBRAND
How should one relate to oneself, being oneself? In other words, what is the love we should have for ourselves and how does this love differ from our love for God and for our neighbors — that we are commanded to love as ourselves?
It is a huge topic. All I intend to do is to share a few thoughts that might throw some modest light on this crucial question. One thing is clear: Our relationship to ourselves differs radically from our relationship to God and other persons — all of them being characterized by their I-thou character. Being myself, I cannot possibly have an I-thou relationship with myself. On the other hand, a love of self is crucially important and typical of personhood: Not to love oneself has something “perverse” about it and can easily degenerate into despair, which can lead to suicide. Chesterton remarks: “The suicide is ignoble….He is a mere destroyer; spiritually he destroys the whole universe” (Orthodoxy, chapter V, p. 73). He who hates himself hates life.
On the other hand, love of self has also been called the source of innumerable evils. “He only loves himself” is a condemnation of a person’s character: It means that he is a hopeless egoist. Clearly the right love of self is not an easy conquest. All those who have truly loved know that falling in love is to perceive the beauty of another person, that is to say, to be granted the gift — for it is one — of perceiving what God intended when He created this one unique, unrepeatable individual. When this “Tabor vision” is granted to us, the response will be, “How beautiful art thou.”
This gift is not given toward everyone: Love of neighbor is, in many cases, a sheer act of faith. Faithfulness is essentially a holding fast to this beautiful image of a beloved when it is temporarily darkened by the imperfections which are in all of us, even though in very different degrees. These imperfections are usually veiled during one’s engagement, but will inevitably become visible once married, being exposed to the difficulties and irritations of everyday life.
The question is: Can one give a response of enchantment to oneself as one does when falling in love with another person? Would not that be sheer narcissism? Narcissism is not an attractive personality trait. On the other hand, it would be impossible to love oneself if one did not perceive something worth loving. After completing the work of creation, God declared that it was very good; as I am one of His creatures, inevitably there must be something “good” in me.
But in loving myself I make an act of “trust.” Self-love would then be based on the joyful conviction that I am a child of God, made to His image and likeness, and it is His beauty that makes me lovable. Whereas in love of others, this love requires that one rejoices at the beauty perceived in them, in self-love it is definitely not the “theme.” For being myself, my “mission” toward myself differs radically from my relation to others.
Here we should make a distinction between “gifts” and lovable features. Had Mozart denied that he had received exceptional musical talents, not only would it be silly but also an act of ingratitude: His response should be to thank God and beg Him for the grace to put these talents at His service. The talented person should neither brag about his talents — that would be vanity, nor — in a show of “false humility,” deny them, which is a very subtle form of pride. One’s talents and accomplishments should not be a theme of conversation that we initiate. He who has received special talents, be it a brilliant intelligence, or great artistic gifts, should recall the words, “What hast thou that thou hast not received?”
On the other hand, when we are aware of virtues or budding virtues (some children can already be selfless, kind, generous, truth-loving), they should be veiled by humility. A generous person should never in any way brag about his generosity: “Everyone must acknowledge that I am very generous.” Praising oneself for having a virtuous trait is, ipso facto, to introduce poison into that virtue. The most ridiculous thing is to praise oneself for one’s humility.
The last course I gave at Hunter College before retiring was on the nature of love. When I started discussing the love of neighbor as extending to all neighbors independently of race, social class, and denomination, one student raised his hand, and told the class that members of his religious group were only obligated to love their co-religionists, but that this love did not extend to outsiders. I grabbed this opportunity to speak about the love that animated Mother Teresa of Calcutta throughout her life; her heart was open to everyone. I underlined, however, that this grade of perfection is reached by very few people.
When I left the classroom, a student ran after me, and after having told me how much he had enjoyed the course, he added that, however, on one point he had to disagree. He said, approximately: “You said that Mother Teresa’s heroic love for her neighbors was very rare; you are mistaken: take my case, for example. I am just like this nun: I live only for others.” Silence was my eloquent comment.
Whereas one dwells joyfully in contemplating the beauty of the loved one, this “contemplation” is excluded in relation to oneself for the very obvious reason that toward ourselves, we have a very different “theme” which is to look at ourselves “lovingly critically.” It is to notice our failures, sins, and imperfections and to beg God for the grace to eradicate them. It is not an easy task, for our eyes are “other directed.” We easily perceive the imperfections in another person’s face; not only is it more difficult to perceive one’s own, but moreover, it is a very unpleasant task. All of us since original sin (with the exception of Mary) enjoy being pleased with our appearance, our personality, our gifts. In true self-love, however — there is a clear call to be aware of our mistakes, failures, and sins.
We should all hear the call; Tua res agitur: This is clearly the call addressed to me personally because having free will I am called upon to collaborate with my loving Savior and call upon His help to do “repair work” on a soul stained by sin. A piece of marble needs a lot of chiseling to become a masterpiece that will be pleasing to God.
My relationship to my fellowmen is clearly very different: I have no control over their wills and it is not my mission to offer to do “chiseling” work on their souls. However, my fellowmen too have been wounded by original sin. But we should not forget that unless God has given us the special calling of educating them — the noble mission of parents toward their children, or the superior of religious orders — it is neither our vocation nor our mission to criticize them and tell them how urgent it is for them to work on their sanctification.
It is a very widespread temptation and can go so far that some feel morally obligated to threaten their neighbors with eternal perdition if they refuse to listen to their warning. Such people — self-appointed apostles — are, alas, totally blind toward their own faults. It is a danger that threatens many of us. We have eagles’ eyesight to perceive others’ weaknesses and sins, while being gleefully blind to our own faults.
History teaches us that many have been those convinced that their calling was to be “reformers” (hence the term “reformation”), fulfilling their self-appointed mission by plaguing others with criticisms and reproaches, and making others’ sins their choicest topic of conversations. Alas reformation has often led to more “deformations.” (St. Francis of Sales wisely and lovingly warned us of this danger in Introduction to the Devout Life, book III, chapters 28 and 29.)
In her autobiography, The Little Flower wrote some very beautiful lines on this topic. Even though very young, St. Therese had been assigned to be mistress of novices. It was her sad duty to notice flaws, failures, and mistakes of these young novices and to correct them. This was her duty, but a very painful one. She would much rather, she wrote, have gone through the humiliation of being herself corrected. When she noticed a nun who was breaking the rule happened not to be a novice, St. Therese said to herself; “Thank God, it is not my duty to correct her.”
I wish these lines were read every day to some people who find delight in criticizing others. I have said above that a striking difference between love of self, and love of others is that I cannot have an I-Thou relationship with myself. This deserves a closer examination.
The Confessions of St. Augustine — one of the most precious gems of Catholic literature — gives us some profound insights on this complex and all-important topic. This book is unique, not only because of the sublime message it shares with us, but moreover because it is addressed to God. It is as its title implies: A Confession. Augustine — having received exceptional talents — fell into the traps of pride and concupiscence, and strayed far away from God. Even though upon reading Hortensius, his passionate love of wisdom was awakened, alas, he still had a long way to go before finding Him, for both his pride and concupiscence were barring his way.
But at one point, he was gloriously defeated by God’s grace, and was given a perception of who he truly was. Augustine gratefully acknowledged his previous ignorance. Now his genius purified by humility was liberated and he generously shared with us insights that we all should treasure. Speaking about himself, he told us that he was “outside himself” while God was “inside.” It was only on the day drenched by tears of repentance, that while falling on his knees, he found himself: For by discovering God. he was given a key to his own self. I said previously that what is typical of self-love is that there is no I-thou relationship possible with oneself.
But Augustine, who through grace, now had deep insights into the mystery of personhood, perceived in a flash that man is not and cannot be isolated. He told us in his own superb eloquence that in finding God he found himself. The I-thou relationship with God renders us capable of finding our true self, and learning to love ourselves as we should.
The conclusion we can draw is that not only do very few people truly love themselves, but five centuries ago, Plato warned us that we tend to be our own worst enemies. Once again Augustine told us that if we truly love God (and hate ourselves…that is, ourselves cut off from God) we truly love ourselves.
Being a good pagan (for there is such a thing) and loving God as much as he could while deprived of the grace of Revelation, Socrates manifested a true love of himself when he exclaimed: “If you succeed in proving me wrong, I will consider you are my greatest benefactor” (Gorgias). To rejoice at being liberated from error (paying the price of humiliation by having endorsed an error) proved that Socrates “loved himself” as much as a pagan could.
Shortly after his conversion, Augustine started writing profusely; one of his very first books is entitled Soliloquies. In it we find these baffling words: “What do you want to know?” His answer is: I want to know God and to know my soul. When asked further whether he wished to know anything else, his answer is categorical: Nihil omnino (Soliloquies, I, ii 6-7). This statement might shock some of us: Has Augustine in becoming an ardent Christian (Catholic) become metaphysically self-centered, being interested only in himself and in God?
May I suggest that this “selfish” assertion is veiling a deep truth? Let us recall St. Mark’s Gospel. Christ meets a man possessed by the Devil, and asks him his name, and his answer is frightening: “My name is many” because there are many of us. The “I” has been hijacked by Satan.
Augustine now perceived with luminous clarity that it is only in finding God that we can find ourselves, and once we have found our true self, the door is wide open to love of neighbors.
Blossoming love of neighbor is possible only to those blessed with the fullness of God’s Revelation. This is a message that Christ brought to His apostles, confiding to them the awesome mission to share it with the whole world. This is why St. Stephen, the proto-martyr, was able, while being stoned by his Jewish brothers, to pray ardently that this sin might not be imputed to them. It is something that would not and could not have entered a man’s head prior to the coming of Christ.
To sum up: It should be clear that true love of self — separated by an abyss from selfishness — is fully accessible only to those who have found the infinitely loving personal God given to us through Revelation. Once we have perceived that each and every single human being, from the moment of conception, is precious as a child of God, the door is opened to true love of neighbor for whatever his background, he too is our brother.
The message of Augustine is clear: He who is blessed by loving a God who is love is given a key to both self-love and love of neighbor.
