Last week I traveled to Philadelphia in order to celebrate the seventieth birthday of my longtime friend David. At the end of a festive dinner at the city’s leading Chinese restaurant, many family members and friends in the group rose to speak about their feelings for him.

We cited the numerous virtues found in David’s character and recalled experiences through which our affection for him grew strong. Several of the speakers, men and women both, finished by saying explicitly that they loved him, a sentiment that struck a resonant chord in my own heart.

David thus received compelling evidence that his friends really do love him. Though it does not always work this way, I like to think that this outpouring of affection worked to strengthen the love that David has for himself.

Jesus told his listeners, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” This commandment, rooted in the Hebrew Bible, is honored in virtually all the religious traditions of the world. It urges on spiritual seekers an ideal that enhances the value of human life. It tells us of our duty and privilege to treat others as we would wish to be treated.

What lies almost hidden in this sublime commandment, however, is its assumption that we ought to love ourselves first. Caring deeply about ourselves is the bedrock on which this religious requirement rests, the starting point for a love that embraces all other people.

Ironically, many people have grown up in religious surroundings that taught them a kind of self-hatred. In the name of spirituality, they learned to be harsh and unrelenting in judging themselves. For reasons that seemed spiritual, they became their own worst critics as they habitually found fault with their own actions and even with their own thoughts and feelings.

Thus, not a few people whose upbringing has been religious do not show much compassion toward themselves. While knowing about the teaching of the great spiritual leaders, they still find it difficult, even impossible, to treat themselves with tenderness. Instead they often feel a gnawing guilt that makes their life much less rewarding than it could be.

Burdened with that guilt, many people think less of themselves than do their friends. They dare not believe the appreciation that friends and family members feel for them. Instead they stay fixated on their own faults, continuing to blame themselves for past sins and mistakes.

Religion often seems to approve of this stance. “Self-love” is often advanced as something that clashes with spiritual well-being. Masters of the spiritual life typically teach their pupils to overcome their self-love by humility and acts of penance.

Used by these spiritual guides, however, the expression “self-love” means something different from what Jesus meant in his commandment. What it points to here is egotism,  the pride that cuts us off from God and other human beings. It suggests an unhealthy focus on oneself that narrows the soul.

Both good mental health and a flourishing spiritual life lead toward an appreciation of ourselves as loveable and loved. Genuine spirituality encourages us to have a high esteem for ourselves, to admire what we are. It teaches us to reject the inner voice that says “If other people really knew what I’m like inside, they could never love me.”

Of course, this should not limit our ability to recognize our own genuine faults. When we have done something wrong, feeling guilty is altogether appropriate. But this feeling of guilt remains compatible with a strong love for ourselves. In fact, a true self-love can free us to admit it when we have done wrong.

Given the wonderful way in which the life of a human person has been created, you might think that loving oneself, being compassionate toward ourselves, would be easy. But, in fact, a proper-self love has to be developed and cultivated. It is part of growing toward spiritual maturity and is a gift that becomes more precious as life goes on.

As the young pastor in Georges Bernanos’ Dairy of a Country Priest says: “How easy it is to hate oneself! True grace is to forget. Yet if pride could die in us, the supreme grace would be to love oneself in all simplicity – as one would love any one of those who themselves have suffered and loved in Christ.”

Richard Griffin