By Engr. Carlos V. Cornejo
On earth it is natural and right to love some people more than others, and this preferential treatment is true of all forms of love, including charity, the highest form of love. We should give our family more love than we give to strangers. And this is also true in heaven. We will love those relatives and friends whom we knew more on earth, than those whom we know less. For grace perfects nature. Nature is not eliminated, but perfected in heaven. And we will also love more the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Joseph there more than others because they have more goodness in them to love.
St. Thomas Aquinas again distinguishes love according to object and subject. The object meaning the person who is loved, and the subject is the person who loves. The object is differentiated according to their lovability or how much goodness in a person is there to love. The intensity of love will be based on the subject, or on how much close is that person to the subject. Now, you might ask, “Will we love more those famous saints like St. Francis of Assisi, St. Therese of the Child Jesus more than our relatives in heaven?” The answer is not a direct yes or no but depends on the objectivity and subjectivity of love. By objectivity, we are to love the mentioned saints more because there is more goodness in them to love but by subjectivity (by passion or feelings) we will love more our relatives and friends in heaven because they are closer to us in intimacy. Therefore, it is not a conflicting love but just different kinds of love much like we have variety of loves here on earth.
The subjectivity of love also means we naturally most love ourselves most passionately because we feel ourselves, our own pleasures and pains, most intensely. The closest thing to us is ourselves. This will remain in heaven. It is an essential part of human nature. It is no evil, or selfish, or competitive by nature but only if we love ourselves in a disordered manner. Nature is the starting point of grace; therefore, the natural love of self is the starting point for supernatural charity. Supernatural charity is in essence self-forgetful, self-sacrificing, and self-giving. If you don’t have a self, you can’t give it away. For no one can give what he does not have. If your self is not worthy to be loved, then it’s not worthy to be given to another. Thus, we have to love ourselves first, before we can love others. We are not commanded to love others instead of ourselves but to love others as we love ourselves (Matthew 22:39). Self-love is the seed; love of others is the plant. The seed is preserved and transformed and perfected and multiplied in the plant.
God loves those saints in heaven according to the goodness or holiness they have acquired here on earth. We will love the Blessed Virgin Mary more than Mary Smith because Mary Smith, however saintly she is in heaven, is not the immaculately conceived Mother of God; and this will cause no envy or resentment on the part of Mary Smith, who will also love the Mother of God more than any other woman in heaven. Part of heaven’s joy will be having heroes and heroines to look up to.
Hierarchy is natural and will remain in heaven. Hierarchy means superiority in something, but not necessarily in everything. Each of us has more of some good and lovable quality than others have, and each is therefore unique and irreplaceable. This will certainly remain in heaven. The number of different value-hierarchies will not be just one but many, perhaps literally innumerable. Everyone will be the very best at one thing: being his or her unique self, a goal no one else could achieve. We will truly be human in heaven more than on earth because we would have gotten rid of our defects and imperfections that hinders us from achieving our true self. In other words, we will be more human there than ever before in heaven.
