Scripture Reflection, June 27: Lord, will I love myself enough to follow you?

Scripture Readings:
1 Kings 19:16, 19-21
Psalm 16:1-2a+5, 7-8, 9-10, 11
Galatians 5:1, 13-18
Luke 9:51-62

Two callings in the scripture readings today caught my attention: the call to “love your neighbor as yourself” and the call of Jesus to “follow him.” We all know that it is very difficult to love others whom we dislike. Jesus is a smart guy and knows the struggles we face with this. I like to think that He is asking only that we see each other through the eyes of a loving creator and from that perspective act accordingly to one another. St. Paul knows this; he acknowledges the complexity of the call to love when in the second reading he says that we tend to “go on biting and devouring one another”. But he also reminds us that we are only set free if we “serve one another through love.”

But I think this call to love encompasses much more. Part of it is a deeper calling to love others. In order to sincerely love others, one has to love oneself. If we are not aware of this, we can become our hardest critics, the ones holding ourselves back, engaging in self-destructive/unhealthy guilt, and the list could go on. We forget to be kind and patient with ourselves, we forget to see ourselves with the same loving eyes that God would, and I think it is when we forget this that it becomes harder to be kind, loving, and patient to others. This is the case for me. It seems that at times when I am most comfortable with the person that God has made me that I also feel most comfortable with the person I am towards others.

Something similar happens when I try to answer the call to “follow” and I am in an “unloving” relationship with myself. I become angry, lost, and insecure. I cannot trust, I have anxiety over life in general, and I fall apart in my relationship with God. I found myself identifying with the individuals that Jesus interacted with in the Gospel. Some said they were ready to go, but asked for time to take care of some things right before they took off. They were not ready. Others were called, but they were also preoccupied with other stuff and were not ready to follow. Many times I have told Him I am ready to follow, but then I ask God to hold on just a little longer while I take care of some business. Other times He has called me, but I am so busy running around that I find every excuse to ignore Him. I find myself unable to follow him, because I cannot hear him, heck, I cannot even give myself five minutes a day to talk to him! I struggle to hear the one who loves me the most because I am unloving towards the woman I am today, and I am worried about the woman I should be tomorrow. But again, Jesus knows I cannot do it alone. He provides the “Spirit” that St. Paul asks us to live by in the scripture and His amazing grace to accompany us in the journey.

Let’s pray today that through His loving care, we may find the best way to love ourselves for who we are today, to love the uncertainties of the moments we are experiencing as young adults, to love and serve others, answering His call to follow.

By Yolanda Rodriguez

(Yolanda is a 2009 Catholics on Call alumna. She is a graduate student and full-time employee of University of Illinois at Chicago, majoring in Youth Development.)

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