So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. John 13:34
Incurvatos in se. It’s a curious Latin term that describes the temptation to keep our faith all about ourselves.
Incurvatos in se means “turned or curved inward on oneself.”[1] Turning in, or doing some introspection, is a good thing when it means I self-assess, confess sin, and correct course. But the temptation can be to focus only on my personal relationship with God and on not sinning, so that I forget that Jesus said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another (John 13:34).
“When spiritual vitality is measured by sin-avoidance,” one pastor writes, “we deceive ourselves into thinking that we are following Jesus faithfully. But following Jesus is to be measured by love—love for God expressed in love for neighbor.”[2]
It’s easy to “curve in on myself” when I’m busy with work, when I’ve got somewhere to be or when loving would make me uncomfortable. In the Bible’s parable of the Good Samaritan, the Samaritan resisted the urge to “turn in” when he stopped to love a messy, injured man and meet his physical needs (Luke 10:25-37).
How about you? Do you find it hard to resist the urge to “turn in” as you go about your daily life? “Perhaps we have not broken God’s law today … But have we failed to love?” Have we missed “opportunities to share the love of Christ with the poor or vulnerable around us?”[3] How can you turn outward to show love to someone today who desperately needs it?
[1] “Incurvatus in Se.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 30 Apr. 2021, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incurvatus_in_se.
[2] Villodas, Rich. “A Failure to Love.” Good and Beautiful and Kind: Becoming Whole in a Fractured World, WaterBrook, Colorado Springs, 2022, p. 8.
[3] Ibid., p.7.
