Freedom

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

I heard a story once about how, in every major city of the world, the airport is about half an hour from the center of the city.

To get to the airport—first of all, everyone has a right to go to the airport, and everyone is free to go to the airport—you've got to go down one road or one street, maybe go round a roundabout, proceed on for another while, turn left here, turn right there, eventually make a left turn and get to the airport.

But if you take away all the laws, and allow people to drive as they want—they can drive on the footpath; when they come to the roundabout, they could go in the opposite direction to which most of the cars are going; they could drive on the right side of the road instead of the left side; and if they really wanted to have fun, they could reverse all the way to the airport on the wrong side of the road—you might find that it would take them much longer to get to the airport. They might never even get there because such a traffic jam would be created.

If everybody else on the road was also driving or reversing all the way to where they were going on the wrong side of the road, there would be total chaos.

And so, the opposite of law is not freedom, it's chaos. Freedom comes with the law.

This is a very Christian idea of freedom. That's why God gave us laws. We have laws in society, laws in the home.

Freedom comes with the law. This meditation is about human freedom.

St. Paul says to the Corinthians, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Cor. 3:17). He also talks about “the glorious freedom of the children of God” (Rom. 8:21).

In St. John, Our Lord says, “The truth will make you free” (John 8:32).

Freedom is the most precious treasure that Christ has won for us on the Cross. True liberation is liberation from sin, because that's the only thing that will keep us out of heaven.

Ultimately, freedom is the freedom to do good, not the freedom to do what we like. Sometimes, when we're free to do what we like, we can hate it. We can end up hating what we do.

We do everything freely, because without freedom we cannot please God.

If you go to any street and ask somebody what's the meaning of freedom, they'll probably tell you that ‘freedom means freedom to do whatever I want.’ It's one of the most misunderstood concepts in modern culture.

But we're not free to do whatever we want. Unconditional freedom does not exist on earth.

Sometimes people might say I want to be free like an animal, or free to roam like an animal. But animals are not really free. They can't choose. It's only an expression.

Our freedom ends where the rights of other people begin. If two people are walking down the street and one wants to kill the other, the freedom of one to kill the other ends where the right to life of the other begins.

We want to blare music at three in the morning. Our freedom to do so ends where the right of other people to sleep begins.

We can ask Our Lord for the grace to understand what real freedom is. We could also ask the question: What controls us?

If we can't say no to a potato crisp, or a square of chocolate, or a shot of whiskey, or a special bargain in the supermarket, or a Coke, or pornography, then we're not really free.

We can ask ourselves, Am I a slave to the television, or to movies, or to alcohol, or to sleep, or to my comfort, or to sin? What controls us?

Freedom is not the power to do what we like. It's something much more important. It's the power to be fully ourselves—or the power to become fully ourselves—to realize fully our potential as human person.

Freedom is a power that functions in us like the wings of a bird. He who has been born with wings should use them to fly.

Man is not born free, but he is born with the power to become free, to become master of his own actions. You can say that man is born with the power to become a man.

A lion cub naturally grows into a fully developed lion. It doesn't have to worry about it. But a child doesn't automatically or inevitably become an adult. You don't become an adult just by reaching 21 or 33.

You may never become an adult. Some people don't. An adult is not just somebody who is well-developed physically.

A man also has spiritual powers, and these may not develop, or they may develop insufficiently. They remain underdeveloped.

You can meet a fully grown adult who has an underdeveloped mind, and especially an underdeveloped will. They may have little or no willpower. They're not really yet adults. They're not masters of their own selves or their own choices.

They're not really free. They don't yet properly possess what most distinguishes human nature, and they may end up losing it completely.

It's important to try and teach children to use their freedom well: to say no to themselves, to learn to choose what is right, to go against their likes and dislikes.

If they don't hear the word No, they may not learn how to say No to themselves. “No” is also a loving word. Children need to hear words of loving denial from time to time.

We are created free to love. The one thing that God wants from us is the love of our hearts freely given.

When God created man, He created him with the gift of freedom, so that he could learn to love God if he wants.

Animals necessarily give God glory, but man is free to give God glory, or not to give God glory. God did not create us as robots. He didn't program us to love Him in a certain way. He wants the love of our hearts freely given.

We are free to go to heaven. But we are free also to go to hell. And so, hell is a child of human freedom.

You could say that God took a big risk with our freedom, because man might use it very badly.

Just as God is free, “man is made in His image and likeness” (Gen. 1:27). One of the ways that man reflects that image and likeness is precisely his freedom.

There's an interior freedom and there's an exterior freedom. The world may take away our exterior freedom. We can be put in jail. We can be housebound for all sorts of reasons.

But the world can never take away our interior freedom. It is the freedom of our will to love God.

There are a number of biographies of saints, or very holy people or people, who are on their way to sanctity and have been imprisoned by communist governments. Cardinal Van Thuan in Vietnam, Cardinal Mindszenty in Hungary—they've written marvelous biographies.

You see the brutal treatment that they received at the hands of communist governments—imprisoned sometimes for twenty-five years; in solitary confinement sometimes for fifteen.

With all the brutal treatment they received, all these authorities could never curtail their interior freedom—freedom to love God. They’ve left us this wonderful legacy of that truth.

We exercise our freedom in our choices and in our love. Love is the most important thing. It's a tendency towards something or someone. Our tendency towards God is inscribed in our nature.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines freedom as “the power, rooted in reason and will, to act or not to act, to do this or to do that, thus performing deliberate actions on one's own responsibility. By free will one shapes one's life. Human freedom is a force for growth and maturity in truth and goodness. It attains its perfection when directed towards God, our beatitude” (Catechism, Point 1731).

Freedom is a power—a power “rooted in reason and will.” We need our intellect and will in the exercise of our freedom to decide and to make choices—to act or not to act, to do this or to do that. And it always brings with it a personal responsibility, which is an ability to give a response.

There are times in secondary school years or teenage years when parents have to loosen their grip a little bit on their teenage children. Give them a little bit of freedom. Let them make mistakes.

If you have invested in the freedom of a teenager, you get a responsible adult. They learn how to use their freedom well.

We have to try and respect the freedom of other people: our spouse, our children—freedom of people to have different opinions than we do, also political opinions. Long live freedom.

This, in a marriage, in a family, in society, is very important. Sometimes you might hear a good Christian, Catholic, mother saying, ‘You will marry whomever I say you will marry.’

If we come out with statements like that, it's like a sign that we haven't really understood human freedom and respect for human freedom, other people's freedom.

Once children reach the age of maturity, they're free in principle to make up their own minds about many things.

A legitimate plurality in society, in family, is a very healthy thing. We have to learn how to grow in that respect for other people's freedom.

John Paul II liked to emphasize how freedom is freedom in the truth and not freedom from the truth (John Paul II, Encyclical, Veritatis Splendor, August 6, 1993). Freedom from the truth of who we are, a man or a woman. Freedom from the family or from marriage. Freedom in the truth.

Through the right use of their freedom in seeking the truth and loving the good, human persons reach their perfection and increase their likeness to the image of the Son. Our freedom reaches its fullness in the beatific vision.

Until we're bound to the ultimate good, there's the possibility of choosing between good and evil; thus, in growing in perfection, or in sinning.

Sometimes we hear the term “moral relativism” nowadays. Pope Benedict liked to emphasize it as “one of the moral evils of our time” (Pope Benedict XVI, Encounter with the Youth, April 6, 2006).

The power to decide what is good and evil—but you see, that power doesn't belong to man, that belongs to God.

The devil said to Eve, “Your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:5). Her eyes were opened all right when she ate the apple, but not in the way that she had imagined.

We're not here to decide what is right and what is wrong in certain situations.

We hear the slogan frequently: “freedom to choose.” That can sound very attractive, pro-choice. But to find the truth of that slogan you've got to finish the slogan.

Freedom to choose what? Freedom to choose to murder your child? Freedom to murder? That's not real freedom. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that we're free to do evil.

We need to be careful with certain ideas. The whole of the sexual revolution of the last fifty years to a large extent has been built up on a wrong notion of human freedom: freedom to do whatever I want in the sexual area.

Of course, if you apply this freedom to choose in other areas, it highlights its weakness. Imagine if we were to say I want to be free to choose rape. What sort of a barbaric society would we have?

Or, I want to be free to choose to be able to rob a bank. Or to kill politicians. We'd end up with organizations like ‘Catholics for Robbing Banks’ or ‘Catholics for Killing Politicians.’

We need to be careful with our ideas because wrong ideas can lead to wrong places. Those wrong ideas of human freedom will have brought a lot of problems with them.

We used to hear a lot about the phrase “freedom of conscience.” “I'm free to follow my conscience.”

Often people nowadays appeal to “my freedom” and “my sincerity of conscience.” I very sincerely believe this. I sincerely believe that this particular thing is okay in this circumstance, whether it's abortion, or contraception, or euthanasia, or whatever it may be.

But you see, sincerity of conscience is no guarantee of correct moral action.

There's a story of four people who were drinking Sprite. They all very sincerely believed in their heart and soul that they were drinking Sprite. But for the fourth person, their Sprite was laced with cyanide. All you can say is that in a few minutes, they'll be very sincerely dead.

We're free to follow our informed conscience. We need to inform our conscience about what is right and what is wrong. Get advice and know the moral law. Is this in keeping with the dignity of human nature?

Our conscience can tell us all sorts of wrong things. Our Lord has told us that “the truth will make you free” (John 8:32). It's a very powerful phrase. Moral truth is a great liberating force.

That's why one of the greatest acts of charity that we can perform with other people is to confront them with the truth.

Even if the truth is painful or difficult to accept—there's something wrong with your lifestyle, or you're doing something that's not right—that's a great act of charity, because that moral truth will be a great liberating force.

When we go to Confession and confess our sins and the priest tells us, This thing is right or This thing is wrong, that's a great liberating force, because now we know what's going to make us happy.

Happiness comes from doing things that are right. Misery comes from doing things that are wrong.

God wants us to be happy. Ultimately, freedom is the freedom to do what is right. Freedom to do good.

We learn the moral truth through the moral formation, from the Catechism, from Confession, from spiritual direction, from spiritual reading.

Pope Francis has recently said that it seems that “men of today no longer like to think of being liberated and saved by God's intervention. In fact, the man of today deceives himself about his freedom. Illusions are sold on the pretext of freedom...new slaves are created in our days in the name of false liberty. Many, many slaves. (Pope Francis, Jubilee Audience, Sept. 10, 2016.

There are bonds that unchain and there are bonds that liberate. If two people are climbing Mount Everest and one is tied with a rope to the other, the one in front can only go forward at the pace at which the guy behind is following up.

He's enchained by that rope, enchained to go at a certain pace. But that rope also frees him from the danger of falling into the abyss.

If you look at an X-ray of the bones of your hand, you'll find that in the fingers there are three bones. And they're held together very tightly by ligaments.

That's what keeps them in place. Those bones are unchained by those ligaments. But because they're enchained, that gives us the freedom to comb our hair in the morning or to lift up our cup of coffee.

If you consider the relevance of this for marriage, for the family, for any team game, for religion, you see there are bonds there that may enchain us in certain ways, but they free us also from great evils.

Blessed bonds, blessed enchainment that guarantees our freedom to do good things. There's no opposition between freedom and obedience. We listen to what other people may tell us what we're supposed to do. We subject our will to them.

But we make those ideas that they say to us our own. We fulfill things freely. We obey freely because we want to, because we see this is the right thing to do. This is the way to go forward. This is what's going to lead me to my eternal salvation.

If we go to seek advice and spiritual direction, something similar happens. The control tower of an airport doesn't have direct control over the action of a plane that's asking for instructions about landing.

But pilots, because they're good pilots, take heed of the information they receive about the weather conditions, the state of the runway, other planes in the vicinity.

Logically, the guidance given from the control power is mandatory, since many lives are involved. But no pilot thinks his freedom is restricted.

Neither does he refuse his personal responsibility. He continues to be in control of the plane.

There's a certain analogy between spiritual direction and the control tower. A person who entrusts to another person the direction of their soul doesn't lose their freedom and responsibility.

On the contrary, they use their freedom responsibly. They make sure of retaining their initiative.

A person comes whenever necessary to ask questions and ask for help and resolve doubts—the attitude of that of a person who wants to go deeper in their life, to be known, makes the advice they receive their own.

It's a characteristic of people who assume their responsibility by means of intelligent obedience, making use of the spiritual as well as the human talents they've received from God.

It may seem sometimes that our obedience is not reasonable. There was a little girl called Judy, five years of age, who was quite talkative and sometimes she went to visit the neighbors and she became more talkative.

One day she remarked to the lady who lived next door, ‘I don't think my mama knows much about raising children because she makes me go to bed when I'm not sleepy and she makes me get up when I am sleepy.’

Sometimes that obedience can seem unreasonable, but yet we make our own the things that are said to us. We obey because we want to.

We freely obey the authority because very often that's the right thing to do. I heard a professor of law once in the 1980s who was talking a lot about the dissent that there was on the teaching of the Catholic Church on contraception.

He made an interesting statement. He said it's better to be with the Pope and to be wrong, rather than to be without the Pope and to be right.

The Pope is never wrong in matters of faith and morals, but we might think he's wrong. But if we adopt the stance that ‘I am right and the Pope is wrong,’ that could set us on a tangent that might lead us very far away from the truth.

It makes an awful lot of sense to be with the Pope even if we think he's wrong, because he'd probably be right in 99.9 percent of all the other cases. And so, it's better to be with the Pope and to be wrong, rather than to be without the Pope and to be right; to make ourselves into a sort of Pope, if you like.

One of the characteristics of lay mentality is freedom. Our Christian vocation leads us to function in the middle of the world with great freedom in temporal matters. That lay mentality leads us to take part in a free and responsible manner in all the upright activities of men.

Lay people are in the world like fish in the water. If we find that water is polluted, we try to purify it. It's very proper to be very much there in the middle of the world acting freely.

We said earlier that we are free to go to heaven or we are free to go to hell. Hell is a child of human freedom. We would be crazy to want to go to hell, but we all have a little bit of that craziness in us.

In The Forge, St. Josemaría says, “In order to persevere in following in the footsteps of Jesus, you need always to be free, always to want, and always to make use of your own freedom” (Josemaría Escrivá, The Forge, Point 819).

We find it a very interesting and important concept in Christianity.

Our freedom is not just from something but it's for something. A taxi that has the sign ‘free’ up on it—it's a sign they're free to drive people around. That's what that taxi and its sign stand for.

We could ask ourselves: What does my freedom stand for?

In the case of Our Lady's freedom, she was poor, she was pregnant, she was unmarried. But her freedom stood first and foremost for life, for marriage, for the family, for the commandments, for service, for love, for the home.

We can ask Our Lady, who kept all these things carefully in her heart (Luke 2:19, 51), that she might help us to grow in our understanding of this concept of freedom, and live it, and give an example of it to everybody around us.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

EW