Week 6    Day 3

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Loving the Good, Humility and Prayer

Faith 21

It is one thing to love the neighbor on account of the good or use he is to us, and another to love him from the good or use we may be to him. Even an evil man can do the first, but only a good man the second, for a good man loves good from good, that is, he loves use from the affection of use. The difference between the two is described by the Lord in Matthew 5:42-47.

Many say, “I love such a man because he loves me and does me good.” But to love anyone for this only is not to love him inwardly, unless he who loves this way is himself in good, and from good loves the good of the other. In this case the man is in charity, but in the other case he is in a friendship which is not charity.

A man who loves the neighbor from charity conjoins himself with his good and not with his person, except so far and for so long as he is in good. Such a man is spiritual, and loves his neighbor spiritually, whereas one who loves another from mere friendship conjoins himself with his person, and at the same time with his evil, and after death he cannot without difficulty be separated from the personality that is in evil, but the former man can. Charity accomplishes this by means of faith, and this faith is the truth. And the man who is in charity by means of the truth examines thoroughly and sees what ought to be loved, and in loving and conferring benefits, he regards the quality of the other’s use.

Divine Wisdom 11:2

[I]t is from the Lord that the love of uses or charity is and exists. The neighbor is the one for whom [uses are done], since the neighbor is the object towards whom charity is to be cherished, and to whom charity is to be manifested.

As it is said that the neighbor is the one for whom, it shall be told what and who the neighbor is. In a broad sense the neighbor is the common or public good. In a more limited sense it means the church, one’s country, or a society, greater or smaller; and in a restricted sense it means a fellow citizen, a companion, and a brother. To perform uses to any of these from love is to exercise charity towards the neighbor, for these are loved when this is done.

These are then loved because love of uses and love of the neighbor cannot be separated. A man may, indeed, from love of uses or from charity do good to an enemy or to an evil man; but to such he performs the uses of repentance or of reconciliation, and these uses are various, and are accomplished by various methods (see Matthew 5:25, 43-44, seq.; Luke 6:27-28, 35).

Luke 10:7-11

And He spoke a parable to those who were invited when He observed how they chose out the first places to recline, saying to them, When thou art invited by anyone to a wedding, do not recline in the first places to recline, lest someone more honorable than thou be invited by him, and he who called thee and him, coming, shall say to thee, Give this man a place; and then thou begin with shame to have the last place. But when thou art invited, go recline in the last place, that when he who invited thee comes, he may say to thee, Friend, go up higher. Then thou shalt have glory before those who sit with thee. For everyone who exalts himself shall be humbled, and he who humbles himself shall be exalted.

Spiritual Diary 1850

How those are represented who think heaven is to be merited by humiliations and supplications. There are those who think that heaven is to be merited by supplications, yet they pray not for others, still less for all, but only for themselves, and thus their prayers are not heard, except, perhaps, in regard to earthly things. One of this character [a female spirit] was represented standing erect above the plane of the right eye, at a moderate distance and a little to the right, covered from the head to the feet with a kind of dirty linen robe, so that the face and head did not appear; from a standing position she threw herself prostrate, and then crept upon the ground. But this was a humiliation prompted by selfhood, and very similar was the humiliation by sackcloth of certain ones in former times.

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