Love and hate

Today’s first reading (Romans 13:8-10) encourages us to love:

Owe nothing to anyone,
except to love one another;
for the one who loves another
has fulfilled the law.

The commandments,
You shall not commit adultery;
you shall not kill;
you shall not steal;
you shall not covet,
and whatever other commandment there may be,
are summed up in this saying, namely,
You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Love does no evil to the neighbor;
hence, love is the fulfillment of the law.

But today’s Gospel (Luke 14:25-33) begins with our Lord apparently encouraging us to hate:

If anyone comes to me
without hating
his father and mother,
wife and children, brothers and sisters,
and even his own life,
he cannot be my disciple.

The hatred of which our Lord speaks is not the hatred of malice, it is not the wishing or intending of evil upon another person, but rather it is making a choice against one thing in favor of something else.

We may rarely have to make such a choice in a dramatic way - between God on the one hand and our lives and loved ones on the other – yet each of us must strive by God’s grace to have the detachment that life in Christ demands.

Yes, we can and should love our families, but we must love Christ above all.

Yes, we can and should love ourselves, but we must love Christ even more.