Love, Seeketh Not Her Own
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When we examine a tree or a flower, we see that the root seems to be subservient to the stalk or trunk, the trunk and branches to be for the sake of the leaves, the leaves for the sake of the flower, the flower for the sake of the fruit, the fruit for the sake of the seed, the seed for the sake of the future plant, and so on; and we wonder which is the principal part, if there be any, that exists for its own sake, and not for the sake of something else. The truth is, no doubt, that each exists for its own sake and for the sake of the whole and of its fellow parts. It struggles for and seeks its own advantage directly and before all, and, by following this tendency of its own nature, it eventually profits the rest, whereas the greatest injury it could inflict on the other parts would be to suffer itself to decay and perish. We, collectively, are the Body of Christ and members in particular, and this fact is the basis of the doctrine of Christian charity. ‘Lie not one to another,’ ‘defraud not one another,’ says St. Paul, ‘because we are fellow members of one body.’ Each member exists for its own sake and also for the sake of the whole body, the head and the fellow members. Each member tends directly to its own well-being and advantage, and thereby to the profit of all the rest, each by being what it should be, by doing what it should do – in a word, by its own perfection, perfects the whole. So, too, by being and acting otherwise than it should, it injures itself and it injures the whole. Where brain or eye is diseased it ceases to live for the whole body, to be serviceable and helpful; it lives for itself, nay rather, it lives at the expense of the rest, seeking its own. It begins to seek its own exclusively, it ceases to co-operate with the rest, to bear their burdens, to sympathize with their joys and sorrows — it becomes selfish.
Here, then, is the true altruism, the Christian conception of charity — to seek ourselves, our own things, for the sake of others; to seek others by seeking ourselves after His pattern who said: Propter eos sanctifico meipsum — ‘For their sakes I sanctify Myself.’ If we ourselves are what we ought to be, we shall be to others what we ought to be. And as the higher and more complex structures of the body are more widely and eminently useful to the rest, so those who are themselves nearer to the perfection of our blessed Lord, the Head and Saviour of the Body, are so far nearer to Him in the depth and extent of their utility toward others. He, as the Head and Soul of the Body, is most intimate in His relation to the very least of the subject members; and the measure of His love for them is the measure of His own perfection and dignity — the measure, moreover, of that most just love which He bears toward Himself. For, quibble about it as we will, we only love others so far as we can recognize them as ours, as belonging to or connected with us in some way. Thus it follows that our love for others is only an extension or overflow of our laudable self-love. Who then is the selfish man? He whose self-love is perverted and feeble, and does not overflow, reach out, extend itself, and draw all things into itself; whose first thought thenceforth is to sacrifice others to himself, and who corrects it only as an afterthought. Who is the unselfish man? He who does not, as the other, view himself falsely as an isolated unit, but sees how all others pertain to him, are his in some sense, are fellow members of greater or less import, and who therefore finds his own happiness in the happiness of others; whose first thought is to sacrifice himself, and who corrects it if necessary, only on an afterthought. He whose self-love is true and strong, and rises up high and overflows and diffuses itself to whatever in any way pertains to him; who, like God, loves all things both great and small, just because all things belong to Him, and because He loves Himself with an infinite and everlasting love.”
~Francis X. Lasance
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