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Office Of Readings | Week 2, Friday, Ordinary Time | A Reading From The Treatise By Diadochus Of Photike On Perfection | God Alone Should Be Loved
‘God alone should be loved.’
In this reading from On Spiritual Perfection, Diadochus of Photiké reflects on the relationship between love of God and love of self. His argument is clear and direct: self-love and love of God move in opposite directions. To love God truly requires a turning away from concern for one’s own glory and a complete reorientation towards the glory of the Creator.
Diadochus begins by contrasting two forms of love. Self-love seeks recognition and affirmation, while love of God seeks only that God may be glorified. The distinction is not merely moral but spiritual. Love of God reshapes desire, ambition, and identity. A person formed by this love measures life not by personal status but by faithfulness to God’s commandments and by willing submission to his will.
Submission, in this context, is not humiliation but friendship with God. Diadochus draws on the words of John the Baptist to illustrate this point: true joy lies in diminishing oneself so that God’s work may become visible. The believer who loves God accepts obscurity and regards obedience as a source of delight rather than loss.
To make his teaching concrete, Diadochus introduces the example of a man whose love for God was expressed above all in humility. This figure does not deny his role or responsibilities, yet he remains inwardly detached from honour and praise. Any recognition he receives is absorbed into his love of God and loses its power to shape his self-understanding. Diadochus uses this example to show that humility is not self-contempt but freedom from the need to defend or promote oneself.
The later part of the passage deepens the theology of love. Love for God, Diadochus explains, arises from an awareness of being loved by God. The more deeply this awareness is felt, the stronger the desire for God becomes. This desire draws the person towards divine light and transforms perception. Self-consciousness fades, not through effort, but through absorption in God’s love.
The description of this state is careful to avoid denying ordinary human life. The person still lives in the body and in the world, yet inwardly belongs elsewhere. Diadochus concludes by citing Saint Paul to show that this tension between absorption in God and service to others is part of Christian existence. Love of God carries a person beyond self-interest, while love of neighbour calls them back into responsible engagement with the world.
A Reading From The Treatise By Diadochus Of Photike On Perfection | God Alone Should Be Loved
Whoever is in love with himself is unable to love God. The man who loves God is the one who abandons his self-love for the sake of the immeasurable blessings of divine love. Such a man never seeks his own glory but only the glory of God. If a person loves himself he seeks his own glory, but the man who loves God loves the glory of his Creator.
Anyone alive to the love of God can be recognised from the way he constantly strives to glorify him by fulfilling all his commandments and by delighting in his own submission. It is fitting that God should receive glory, because of his great majesty; but it is fitting for us as human beings to submit ourselves to God and thereby become his friends. Then we too will rejoice in his glory as Saint John the Baptist did, and we shall never stop repeating: His fame must increase, but mine must diminish.
I knew someone who was sad that he could not love God as he would have wanted, but who nevertheless loved God so much that his soul was always in the grip of desire for God, for God’s glory to manifest itself in him, for himself to be as nothing in comparison. Such a person cannot be touched by verbal praise or convinced of his being, since his overwhelming humility means that he simply does not think about his own dignity or status. He celebrates the liturgy as, according to the law, priests should; but his love of God blinds him to all awareness of his own dignity. He buries any glory that might come his way in the depth of his love of God, so that he never sees himself as anything more than a useless servant: he is estranged, as it were, from a sense of his own dignity by his desire for lowliness. This is the sort of thing we ought to do, to flee from any honour or glory that is offered us, for the sake of the immense riches of our love of God who has so loved us.
Anyone who loves God in the depths of his heart has already been loved by God. In fact, the measure of a man’s love for God depends upon how deeply aware he is of God’s love for him. When this awareness is keen it makes whoever possesses it long to be enlightened by the divine light, and this longing is so intense that it seems to penetrate his very bones. He loses all consciousness of himself and is entirely transformed by the love of God.
Such a man lives in this life and at the same time does not live in it, for although he still inhabits his body, he is constantly leaving it in spirit because of the love that draws him towards God. Once the love of God has released him from self-love, the flame of divine love never ceases to burn in his heart and he remains united to God by an irresistible longing. As Saint Paul says: If we are taken out of ourselves it is for the love of God; if we are brought back to our senses it is for your sake.
Christian Prayer With Jesus Christ
God of perfect love,
you call us away from concern for ourselves
and draw us into the freedom of loving you alone.
Release us from self-love
that seeks its own honour and security.
Teach us to desire only your glory
and to find joy in obedience to your will.
Deepen in us the awareness
that we are first loved by you.
Let this knowledge shape our hearts,
our choices, and our prayers.
Free us from the need for praise,
and give us humility that is calm and truthful.
May the fire of your love
burn steadily within us
and keep us united to you.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen
Glossary Of Christian Terms
Self-love | Preoccupation with one’s own status, honour, or advantage
Divine love | The love that comes from God and draws the soul towards him
Glory of God | The honour and praise due to God alone
Submission | Willing acceptance of God’s will
Commandments | God’s instructions for faithful living
Humility | Freedom from concern for personal status or recognition
Dignity | Personal worth or rank, especially in social or religious terms
Divine light | God’s truth and presence enlightening the soul
Transformation | A deep change of heart and perception brought about by God’s love
Longing | Intense desire for union with God
Self-awareness | Consciousness of oneself, contrasted here with absorption in God
Union with God | A close spiritual relationship formed through love
Lowliness | Willing acceptance of a humble place before God
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