How Do You Treat Yourself?

How Do You Treat Yourself?

You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Mark 12:31

I have always looked upon this quote from Mark as a guide to how to treat others. We are to help our neighbors, feed our neighbors and love our neighbors. You will note however that Jesus does not come out and say this here directly. Do you treat your neighbor as yourself? If you said “of course I do,” I would next ask you how do you treat yourself? Do you take care of yourself? Do you worry too much? Do you take care of your soul? St. Bernard of Clairvaux in his Sermons on the Song of Songs (no. 18) suggests that we take some time to reflect on the care of our inner selves. If we reflect deeply and discover that our inner soul and mind are distressed and have been neglected then how can we possibly treat and love our neighbor as our self? St. Bernard says “If you discover this chaos in your own interior, what madness drives you to insinuate yourself into other people's business?”

            St. Bernard reminds us to not be over virtuous, to not be more generous than God. God would like us to take care of ourselves and to treat our body and souls well so that we are able to take care of our neighbor and love our neighbor as ourselves. St. Bernard suggests that we look at our inner energies and soul as a reservoir. If our inner being has been fed and we are overflowing with the Spirit then we can share with our neighbors but if we are empty and depleted we need to tend to our body and soul. We need to slow down, refill our reservoirs with prayer, energy and love. Only then will we be able to treat and love our neighbors as we do our self.

God Bless, Holly Clark