Selfless Love

About the same time that I was trying to figure out what I could work on in the new year to improve myself, I came across an advertisement for The Other Journal- A Retreat to Grow in Selfless Love. The words “selfless love” really resonated with me so I ordered the journal and have been working with it very slowly over the last month or so.

I have often struggled with the concept of selfless love. I have tried at various times in my life to be better at it only to fail, except where my children are concerned.

I feel good about my ability to love my children selflessly. That’s what having children is all about. From the minute you realize you are pregnant, the selflessness kicks in. You can only think of the safety and wellbeing of that child. You sacrifice sleep, happy hours, and deli meats for nine months out of selfless love. And that’s just the beginning of the sacrifices you gladly make out of an insane love for your children. I do give myself a decent grade in selflessly loving my children. I think I do ok there.

It’s everybody else that I struggle with.

There doesn’t seem to be any strings attached to the love I have for my children. Often, there are deep hidden strings attached to the love I give to others. That is how I know it’s not selfless love. There are no strings attached to selfless love. It’s just love for the sake of loving. That’s what makes it so hard.

Selfless love loves without reward or return. Selfless love leaves the ego behind and blossoms from a heart of deep humility. Eight of the chapters in The Other Journal focus on humility. One is even entitled “Heroic Humility.” It takes an act of heroism to humble ourselves fully enough to put others first and keep our pride at bay. It requires becoming small and that’s big.

Throughout the journal, the reader is encouraged to visit the Litany of Humility that is printed in the back of the book. It’s is a prayer attributed to Rafael Cardinal Merry Del Val who died in 1930. It is by far the hardest prayer for me to say and really mean. It’s a litany, or long list, of requests the pray-er is asking of Jesus.

Things like:

From the desire to be loved – Deliver me, Jesus
From the desire of being preferred to others – Deliver me, Jesus
From the fear of being forgotten – Deliver me, Jesus
From the fear of being ridiculed – Deliver me, Jesus

That others may be loved more than I – Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be esteemed more than I – Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be praised and I unnoticed – Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be chosen and I set aside – Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

This prayer doesn’t bring me comfort, it brings me quite the opposite. I get kind of upset when I read it. I’m not so sure I want to be unnoticed and set aside. I don’t want to be forgotten or ridiculed. That’s a lot to ask.

Says my pride.

So, as you can see, I do need to grow in selfless love. How about you? Want to join me on this journey of heroic humility?

I hope you do so much better than me. (Not really)

Joan

In case you would like to order a copy for yourself, here is a link,  The Other Journal, published by 10th Hour Productions.

And here is a link regarding The Litany of Humility.