SATURDAY, July 3

Matthew 22:23-40. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

This second of the great commandments presented by Jesus assumes that we love ourselves--and it does not challenge that love. Loving someone else is a virtual impossibility without a healthy love of ourselves.

On the face of it, the idea seems presumptuous. What right have we to love ourselves? Especially on days when things go wrong, when our failures far outnumber our successes, our mistakes obliterate our achievements, we wonder what there can be about us that could be lovable. Yet God accepts us and loves us. What right have we to consider ourselves better judges of humanity than God?

"Self-acquaintance is a rare condition," Robert Henri said. And even more rare, perhaps, is self-acceptance. If we try to see ourselves as we really are, we may find that some of our most endearing qualities are our faults. We must not hate ourselves because of our faults; we must love ourselves in spite of them, and with the kind of love God has for us: not an admiring approval, but a merciful willingness to accept and live with imperfection and failure. (1962)

PRAY for the Diocese of East Tennessee (Province IV, USA)

Ps 137:1-6(7-9), 144 * 104; Numbers 24:12-25; Romans 8:18-25

View the daily Lectionary Readings at Satucket.com.
Or view the Bible passages at Biblegateway.com.

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