THE LOVE OF ONE’S NEIGHBOR
By Alan of Lille 2
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Certainly he who cuts himself off from the love of his neighbor strays from the love of God, for: “Anyone who does not love his neighbor whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?” O man, surely, you wish that your neighbor should love you for God’s sake? Love him for your own sake.
As Seneca, the moral philosopher, says: “If you wish to be loved, love.” O happy love…which is truly grafted into the nature of the highest good, which is content without envy. Such love possesses its delight within itself; it does not grow anxious; it rests in tranquility. It does not dissolve into mockery. O how joyous it is to find your very self in another! It is indolence and negligence to let the employment of love fall into disuse, and not to exercise the most noble of the virtues. It is the glory of true friendship to be the instrument of purging the last dregs of merely superficial delight.
You have a friend, not so that he should visit you when you are sick, or feed you when you are famished, or comfort you in prison, but so that you should visit him in prison, feed him when he is hungry, give him drink when he is thirsty; if he is a wanderer, take him in. If you love a poor neighbor, you give him alms out of love alone, for the alms of the heart are much greater than that of the body. Love alone is enough, in almsgiving, without earthly substance. That which is given physically is not enough, unless it is bestowed in a kindly spirit. Keep therefor to the order of love. Love God above all, yourself next, and your neighbor as yourself, the flesh least of all.
Love the flesh, not so that you may be its slave, but so that you may set it right with discipline. Love it for its good, not for the sake of worldly debauchery. Do not heed its will, but force it to heed yours. Like a good doctor, cure by this means what is weak, broken or diseased. So let it grieve now that it may rejoice in eternity. Let it now taste the bitterness of medicine, that the soundness of eternal health may follow.
2
CF 23:93-94