If There Is Love

Citizen Cope is an underrated artist. He makes more than music–he makes feelings. His song If There Is Love was stuck in my head today. The chorus goes like this: “If there is love, I just want to have something to do with it.”

Today’s homily was about love, too. Our parish priest (and my friend) Fr. Francesco was explaining God’s love. We are imperfect and we mess up. It’s hard for us to love God or others, but God loves us anyways. Unconditionally.

That’s a powerful message, but I keep thinking the Church is missing something when it comes to love. The two main commandments are to love God and love your neighbor. But what about loving yourself?

People think self love is narcissistic and selfish. That’s not true. When you love yourself, truly and deeply and unconditionally, it’s all you need. Your love becomes self-fulfilling; in no time, if your love is overflowing, you have no choice but to share it with others. That includes God.

If you love others without loving yourself, your love will run dry. You can’t sustain it, or at least I never could. Loving yourself is the key to loving others. Period.

Lately I’ve been thinking about this a lot. I’m thinking my life’s mission may have to do with spreading this message far and wide: Love Yourself First, then Love Others. If there is love within you, love will flow from you.