In the Gospel of Luke our Lord says: “If any one comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple (Lk 14:26).” How are we to understand this seemingly harsh statement?
First of all, we should understand that Jesus is saying this in the context of someone wanting to be a disciple of his, as we all should. Given the context, what Jesus is saying is that nothing should take precedence over our love for him, not even love for our parents and other family members. The greatest of our loves is always love for God.
Naturally, this statement must be understood too in the context of all Jesus’ teaching, where he says constantly that we must love everyone. When a lawyer Pharisee asked him which was the great commandment, he answered: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it. You shall love your neighbour as yourself” (Mt 22:37-38). From this it is clear that the commandment to love God, being the great and first commandment, takes precedence over love for our neighbour, which is the second commandment.
And in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus tells us to love even our enemies: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…” (Mt 5:43-44). If we are to love our enemies, we must surely love our parents even more.
Jesus explains the relationship between love for God and love for family on other occasions. For example, “He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (Mt 10:37). Therefore, we are to understand “hating” our family members only in the sense that we are to subordinate our love for them to our love for God. It is not meant to be literally hatred but rather a strong figure of speech for renouncing anything opposed to love for God.
We should always love our family members, but if our love for them were to be an obstacle to our love for God, we should prefer God to them. Thus, for example, if someone felt called by God to a vocation of celibacy in the Church and their parents were opposed to it, they should tell their parents that they love them dearly, but they love God more and will follow his call.
The Catechism makes this clear: “Family ties are important but not absolute. Just as the child grows to maturity and human and spiritual autonomy, so his unique vocation which comes from God asserts itself more clearly and forcefully. Parents should respect this call and encourage their children to follow it. They must be convinced that the first vocation of the Christian is to follow Jesus: “He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (Mt 10:37; CCC 2232).
St Gregory the Great sums it up: “In this world let us love everyone, even though he be our enemy; but let us hate him who opposes us on our way to God, though he be our relative … We should, then, love our neighbour; we should have charity towards all – towards relatives and towards strangers – but without separating ourselves from the love of God out of love for them” (In Evangelium homiliae, 37, 3).
This becomes all the more clear when we recall that in the passage in which Jesus tells us to “hate” our family members, he adds that we must “hate” even our own life. We know we must always love ourselves and our life, but we must subordinate that love to our love for God. Elsewhere Jesus teaches: “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake, he will save it” (Lk 9:23-24). Thus, for example, we must be prepared to die a martyr, to lose our life, rather than deny God.
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