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 the curious Latin term that the North African theologian, Augustine, used to describe one of the things that sin does to us.

In his book, Good and Beautiful and Kind, Rich Villodas resurrects Augustine, and a theological term from the Latin that means, “turned or curved inward on oneself.”[1] Turning in, or doing some introspection, is a good thing when it means that I self-assess, confess sin, and correct course.  But the temptation is to focus solely 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 also are to love one another (John 13:34).

“When spiritual vitality is measured by sin-avoidance,” Villodas 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 parable of the Good Samaritan, the Samaritan resisted incurvatus in se when he stopped to love the messy, injured man and meet his physical needs (Luke 10:25-37).

Villodas asks, “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]

[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.