Saint Luke Brotherly Love, Human Brotherhood vs Indifference, Egoism and Agressiveness

Saint Luke Brotherly Love
Human Brotherhood and Solidarity vs Indifference & Aggressiveness

Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,
Bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.
To him who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from him who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt.
Give to every one who begs from you; and of him who takes away your goods do not ask them again.
And as you wish that men would do to you, do so to them.
If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them.
And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same.
And if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much again.
But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High
Bible, Luke 6.27-6.35

Decidedly, Saint Luke asks us too much. To love those who hate us, when we are clearly incapable of loving the poor we meet, or the unfortunate gathered on the edges of our societies? To love those who hate us, when our daily life is full of indifference towards the unknown people we encounter? To allow others to rob us without reacting, and manage what we lend as if we were giving?

Decidedly, we don’t behave and love in the terms proposed by Saint Luke. We love in much more restricted and conditioned terms.

«Why do I love my own children so much and other people’s children so little? », asks Sponville, peeping into our hearts in a much more realistic way than Saint Luke. And the same Sponville answers: «Because my children are mine, and in loving them I love myself».

Egoism is in fact at the bottom of our hearts – even in our loves. And we can’t expel it. On many occasions we can sympathise, or be capable of generosity and solidarity with other people. But we shouldn’t have any illusions: we aren’t the saints that Saint Luke demands us to be, and we will never be able to love in the terms he asks for.

We are sons of the world’s cruelty. We are descendants of beings who have struggled and killed to survive. In order to survive our ancestors had to practise solidarity, indifference and aggressiveness. From our distant fathers we have inherited parental and kinship love. We haven’t inherited – because there wasn’t such love in their hearts – the brotherly love proposed by Saint Luke.

We can ask: isn’t it possible to raise ourselves ethically, and to extend our sympathy and love beyond the inner circles considered by our instincts and animal nature? And shouldn’t we face the required love of Luke as a poetic and desirable metaphor?

Certainly. Appeals to brotherly love are always welcome. They can be exalting, and Saint Luke’s words are a good metaphor, in a sense. But we should also be realistic. In defending them, we also incur the inevitable risk of being ignored and our arguments compared to void words and mere rhetoric.

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Quotations
Brotherly Love

I see God in every human being. When I wash the leper's wounds, I feel I am nursing the Lord himself.
Mother Teresa, 1910-1997, Roman Catholic missionary, Guardian 6/9/97

Though we can give without loving, it is almost impossible to love without giving.

A. Comte-Sponville, French philosopher, Small Treaty on the Great Virtues

Why do I love my own children so much and other people’s children so little? Because my children are mine, and in loving them I love myself.

We have bad hearts, for our hearts are selfish; it’s generosity, much more than lucidity, that we lack.

A. Comte-Sponville, French philosopher, Small Treaty on the Great Virtues

Quotations
Love as Brotherhood: Dalai Lama

In Tibet we say that many illnesses can be cured by the one medicine of love and compassion.

No material object, however beautiful or valuable, can make us feel loved, because our deeper identity and true character is in the subjective nature of the mind.

The more we care for the happiness of others, the greater our own sense of well-being becomes. Cultivating a close, warm-hearted feeling for others automatically puts the mind at ease.

The need for love lies at the very foundation of human existence. It results from the profound interdependence we all share with one another.

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