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Campus Ministries: Catholic Ministries

PLEASE DON'T CALL IT "LOVE"

This South Bronx mother had come to me for advice. She had an adult son who was heavily into drugs. He was refusing to seek treatment. What could she do to help him? "Last week he came knocking at my door late at night. I'm his mother. What could I do? I felt sorry for him. How could a mother sleep knowing her son was out there? I let him in. The next morning he took my rent money and left with it. He returned again late last night. When I refused to open the door, he started banging and yelling, disturbing my neighbors. He's my son. What could I do? I let him in. Isn't that love? This morning he walked out with my TV set. I don't know what I should do the next time he returns. I love him."

I'd like to suggest that most of us have been faced with this same scenario, though the characters and plot were different. Perhaps it was an alcoholic begging for a quarter, or a friend being abused by her boyfriend. The dilemma is the same: what is the loving thing to do?

The true story I recount above has stayed with me because of it poignancy. How do I tell a mother's heart that she must keep her door closed to her own son, until he accepts treatment? How do I get her to understand that it is not really her son at the door, but a thief possessed by a devil called drugs? How can I get her to accept that if her son is to dispossess his demon, and become himself again, she must not support his journey towards self-destruction?

Painful though it may be, she must let him hit bottom so that, hopefully, he might finally start up the long road of recovery. She will stand by her son 100% to help him recover, but she will not help him to self-destruct. Sometimes, tragically, "tough love" is the only genuine love. Killing someone with kindness is not love. Letting her son into her home might seem like caring, it might help her feel better about herself, but please don't call it "love."

Did you ever have someone try to put a guilt trip on you? You have some good reason for not providing the help they want, so they start pressuring you, trying to make you feel guilty for withholding your assistance. They make you wonder if you're being too hard and selfish. Wouldn't the loving thing be to help them, not matter what they've done in the past? A long time ago, after being burned a number of times, I began to realize that when someone tries to make me feel guilty about not doing what they want, it's usually a sign that something is not right with their request. It took me a while to recognize that it isn't always a matter of my being willing to sacrifice myself for another's welfare. What's not good for me, is often not good for the other person either. If it's not good for me to let myself be exploited, neither is it good for them to abuse my kindness. Whenever someone starts to lay a guilt trip on you, a red flag should go up in your head warning you that they might be trying to take advantage of your kindness. Giving in to their pressuring might help you to avoid feeling guilty, but please don't call it "love."

The student before me was totally preoccupied with his family's many serious problems. "My father's an alcoholic. He used to verbally abuse me. Now that I'm out of the house he's abusing my younger brother. How can I get my father to change?" He went on with a list of concerns about his dysfunctional family, punctuated here and there with some clear indications that he himself also had important issues that needed attention. I did my best to listen and make some suggestions about his family. Then I told him that what I thought he really needed to do was to focus on himself, to attend to his own personal problems. He was shocked to hear this. "Wouldn't that be selfish? I never heard that in church. Aren't we supposed to love our neighbor, our family, to put others first?" I asked him if he ever heard in church that we are to love our neighbor as we love ourselves (Mt 22:39)?

Sometimes it's easy to confuse vice and virtue. Certainly there is a vicious selfishness afoot in the world that exhorts us to look after #1, to be concerned only with ourselves and our wants, to forget the needs of others. But there is also a wholesome, virtuous love of self that takes seriously our responsibility to let God heal our brokenness. Love often calls upon us to sacrifice ourselves for others, but genuine love does not become so preoccupied with the speck in our neighbor's eye that we neglect the log in our own (Mt 7:3-5). How easy it is for us, under the guise of love, to focus so much energy on helping others that we neglect our own spiritual needs. The good that we are so busy doing for others can actually become an excuse, a red herring, to distract us from our personal issues. Paradoxically, only by learning to love ourselves, understanding ourselves and tending to our inner journey, are we are able to genuinely love others. Focusing exclusively on the needs of others might appear virtuous, it might make us feel good about ourselves, but please don't call it "love."

Ronald Stanley, O.P.

For additional articles relating to this topic see:

FORGIVE! ...AND FORGET?

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