The Rules of Love

As far as teaching is concerned, the love of God comes first; but as far as doing is concerned, the love of our neighbour comes first.  Whoever sets out to teach you these two commandments of love must not commend your neighbour to you first, and then God, but God first and then your neighbour.  You, on the other hand, do not yet see God, but loving your neighbour will bring you that sight.  By loving your neighbour you purify your eyes so that they are ready to see God. . .  (St. Augustine's Tractates on St. John)

Social justice must have its foundation on these principles of loving God and loving neighbor, without conflating the two.  God is God and man is man, and loving one's neighbor is not the equivalent of loving God.  It is not "good enough" simply to love one's neighbor and not bother about love of God.  Right teaching - right doctrine - is also essential, as are the worship and prayer that keep our hearts focused on God.  

On the other hand, as Augustine says, though right teaching tells us that God is to be the center of our lives, love of neighbor shows us the vision of this God: "love whoever is nearest to you and look inside you to see where that love is coming from: thus, as far as you are capable, you will see God."  Our neighbor is a gift God has given us to allow us to practice love as we prepare for the vision of Him.  We are rejecting God's grace if we reject the opportunity - and the obligation - to love our neighbors and seek justice for them.

The essential point: loving one's neighbor is not the end of the journey - it is the journey, which has its end in loving God together, in the community of saints.  This is the meaning of the Church universal: "By loving your neighbour, you are travelling on a journey. . . So support your neighbour, who is travelling with you, so that you may reach him with whom you long to dwell."  We love our neighbors by encouraging and supporting them on our mutual journey to God, and we know that we cannot reach God without the love and assistance of our neighbors.  We are interdependent; our fates are intertwined.  Love of neighbor is the path we travel together; love of God is the destination we share.

Without love of God, we wander astray, aimless and purposeless.  Without love of neighbor, we may see our goal, but we will have no way of reaching it.

Love of neighbor is the path we must travel to fulfill our divine destiny.  For, as Augustine says, loving our neighbor empowers us to see God, and, as St. John says, we are what we see: "We shall be like him because we shall see him as he really is."  And the greatest gift we can give to our neighbors is to help them fulfill God's purpose for themselves.  The greatest love we can show our neighbor is to bring them to the love of God.