{"id":10733,"date":"2026-08-27T19:03:20","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T23:03:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fatherboniface.org\/wordpresshome\/books-and-articles\/e90-accompaniment-07\/"},"modified":"2026-08-27T19:03:20","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T23:03:20","slug":"e90-accompaniment-07","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.fatherboniface.org\/wordpresshome\/books-and-articles\/e90-accompaniment-07\/","title":{"rendered":"Accompaniment 7: Mt 22 \u2014 The Greatest Commandment"},"content":{"rendered":"

Written for Exodus 90 in 2023, as part of a series of ten reflections on the art of accompaniment.<\/em><\/p>\n

One question that arises from Jesus\u2019s teaching on the Greatest Commandment is: \u201cWhat does it mean to love God with all<\/em> our mind or all<\/em> our heart?\u201d Another question that arises is \u201cHow do I love myself?\u201d As we explored in the last reflection, our interior is complex, with many parts. We can identify protectors (managers and firefighters), exiles carrying burdens that get banished from our conscious experience, and even an innermost self. The innermost self is capable of caring for our whole person with compassion, calm, creativity, courage, calm, confidence, clarity and connectedness. These are what the Internal Family Systems (IFS) psychological model calls \u201cThe 8 C\u2019s.\u201d When we can feel the 8 C\u2019s we have an indication that we are acting out of our innermost Self.<\/p>\n

When we are acting out of our innermost self, we can love the other parts of ourselves. There may be a part of us that is a hard worker and another part that knows how to have a good time. We may have a part that is strong and can fight for justice and another part that is tender and romantic and knows how to be attentive to a woman. When we are acting out of our innermost self we can see and love all the good ways God has made us: \u201cFor you formed my inward parts, you knitted me together in my mother\u2019s womb. I praise you, for I am wondrously made. Wonderful are your works\u201d (Ps 139:13-14)!<\/p>\n

On the other hand, sometimes a part of us takes over and we lose this grace-filled perspective. When we are burdened with failure or threatened by someone who makes us feel inadequate, our hard-working part can be pushed into extreme functioning. We overwork to prove ourselves and to exile the pain of feeling our weakness. When our weakness is exposed, perhaps by an angry boss or a jealous colleague, the part of us that knows how to have fun might act out as a \u201cfirefighter\u201d through pornography or alcohol in order to squelch the pain. This can intensify the shame and cause our inner critic to start beating up our fun-loving part. Meanwhile, another righteous part of us might call the priest on speed-dial to bury it all in a quick Confession.<\/p>\n

Speaking of ourselves in \u201cparts\u201d language can start to sound a little crazy, as if we have multiple personalities, but most people who read this kind of description can also identify with it. As St. Paul said, we are at war in our members (cf. Rom 7:23). We know there are conflicting forces at work in us and each has a certain kind of logic that it follows. What are we to do about this? The key is to get some distance from individual parts and operate out of our innermost self. We can do that by various grounding techniques, such as taking a few deep breaths (breathe in to a count of four, pause for a second and breathe out to a count of four; repeat this several times). Also, by focusing on the feeling we can get some distance from it. For example, when a craving starts to come up (from a firefighter preparing to wash out the feeling of shame), we can get a little distance from the craving by asking questions like, \u201cHow intense is this craving, on a scale of 1 to 10?\u201d or \u201cWhere do I experience this craving in my body?\u201d<\/p>\n

As we spend more time in our innermost self, we will grow in confidence that all the parts of us are good, even if some of them cause some problems at times, and we will learn to love God with all our hearts even as we love our neighbors as ourselves.<\/p>\n

For more on a Catholic approach to IFS see http:\/\/soulsandhearts.com<\/a><\/p>\n

For more on IFS applications to shame and purity, see http:\/\/purityispossible.com<\/a> and http:\/\/optimalwork.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Written for Exodus 90 in 2023, as part of a series of ten reflections on the art of accompaniment. One question that arises from Jesus\u2019s teaching on the Greatest Commandment is: \u201cWhat does it mean to love God with all our mind or all our heart?\u201d Another question that arises is \u201cHow do I love […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":10722,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-10733","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P7bfMR-2N7","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":10736,"url":"https:\/\/www.fatherboniface.org\/wordpresshome\/books-and-articles\/e90-accompaniment-10\/","url_meta":{"origin":10733,"position":0},"title":"Accompaniment 10: Jn 13 \u2014 A new commandment","author":"Father Boniface Hicks, O.S.B.","date":"August 27, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"Written for Exodus 90 in 2023, as part of a series of ten reflections on the art of accompaniment. 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