IPLW-Faith, “How Freedom Moves,” pp. 66-72
Is it Possible to Live This Way? Vol. 1 Faith
Last time we discussed how Msgr. Giussani defines “freedom” as one’s relationship with the Infinite, with the Other. Like any relationship, there must be movement, a dynamism, in the relationship or it will die. So how does freedom move? What is the dynamism in freedom?
We really just need to look in the mirror, and at the people around us, to recognize that if it was left up to us, there would be no movement in the relationship that is freedom. We too easily fall into the routine, and being that we are very much limited/finite, we cannot make the first step towards the Infinite/God. All is grace. In other words, all is a gift from God. God, the Infinite, reaches for us; He solicits us to enter into a relationship with Him. God calls and invites us to participate in freedom.
Not many people receive this call in the extraordinary manner that the prophets were called, so how does God stimulate us to move into the relationship of freedom. We always need to start from our own experiences. God works through His creatures. While it certainly can be through the beauty of nature or of music or some other art (all things are a sign of God), the most common way in which God becomes present within our hearts is through other people. Working through others, who have already entered in a conscious way into the relationship that is freedom, God makes Himself present in our lives, and our hearts thirst for this freedom.
Msgr. Giussani, and now Fr. Julian Carron (the current head of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation, now that Msgr. Giussani has died), says over and over that it is important to go back to our original encounter which awaked this thirst in us, to recall it, so that the impression becomes deeply impressed in us. That is why I frequently talk about that encounter I had with Luca and Daniel in the coffee shop in Princeton, when I first encountered the Movement of Communion and Liberation. It was the joy of life that I experienced in those two men, a joy that I recognized as being greater than just the men in front of me, stirred a desire in me. I wanted that joy. I wanted that life. I recognized in them what my heart was truly yearning for. Not that they would be what would make me ultimately happy, but rather I recognized that they were on the road to what would bring me to that ultimate happiness/beatitude. There are different paths, within the Body of the Church, leading to the Infinite, and He calls people to different paths. Just as I knew that God had called me to be a priest, I knew that God was calling me to be a priest who follows the Movement of Communion and Liberation. At that time, I still had little to no idea what all this talk of “method” meant (and I only know it a little bit better now), but I knew that I must follow. The dynamic of my freedom had been engaged.
There is a prerequisite, if you will, for this to happen. We must be attentive. We must be free of preconceptions, and face things and feel the pure and original reminder of them. “I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike” (Matt. 11:25). “The simple are those who call a spade a spade, who tell it like it is” (IPLW-Faith, p. 68).
This has really given me a new perspective, and appreciation, of my first 18 months of priesthood. Six months after my ordination I was diagnosed with cancer. While it was a very treatable form of cancer (thyroid), it did wipe me out, physically for close to the next 6 months. Just as I was getting my stamina back, and my doctors said that all my “numbers” were where they wanted them, my father was diagnosed with terminal cancer. I got transferred to a parish closer to my parents, so that I could help my mother care for my father, and 11 days after I arrived at my new assignment my father died, right before Christmas. It was a month after my father’s death that I met Luca and Daniel. At that time I felt broken, that it had all been too much all at once, and I could not catch my breath emotionally and spiritually. Now I see that God was helping me to strip away my preconceptions — of what priesthood, especially the first year (I remember saying to myself that I felt “robbed” of my honeymoon period as a new priest), was suppose to be like, of what my life was going to be now that I had given myself to God. He was preparing the soil of my soul so that when I encountered Luca and Daniel, I would have the simplicity of heart to recognize the Infinite Presence which is the true desire of my heart.
Holding on to preconceptions leads only to falsehood, and falsehood is the opposite of freedom.
Now there is one other aspect of the movement of freedom that Msgr. Giussani discusses in this section. Since I was not able to reproduce in this blog the figure he has (on p. 64), you will need to be patient with this description. Imagine a large “V”; at the bottom of the “V” is an “X” — that is us. At the top of the opening of the “V” is a infinity symbol (∞) which is our destiny, union with God, and there is an arrow from X to ∞ representing our relationship with God, the movement of freedom. Until we are united with God, our freedom is imperfect because our heart is not totally happy/satisfied. Now, within the “V” between X and ∞ there are a lot of other letters, representing our experiences with creation in our lives. Because these other letters are closer to us than ∞, they often have more emotional attractiveness, and they can cause us to veer off our path towards our destiny. This is the concept of sin. “In the dynamic of freedom the possibility of sin — which is choosing, in the face of a creature, what is immediately more satisfying, instead of using the creature to extend further towards the destiny we’re made for — is implicit” (IPLW-Faith, p. 69). Sin, from the Greek, literally means “to come up short, or to miss the mark.” Sin is coming up short on our journey and taking another road. St. Paul says, “everything created by God is good” (1 Tim. 4:4), because all created things calls us back to the Creator. However, the more immediate (though far imperfect and finite) beauty of a created thing might attract us more, but we will never find fulfillment in them, and without that fulfillment there will be no lasting happiness, no freedom. In exercising our freedom of choice we must choose to follow that which will bring us to our destiny, even if it might not seem to be the most attractive option at the moment. “Freedom will be complete, full, when it’s in front of the object that totally satisfies it. Then it will be totally free, total freedom” (IPLW-Faith, pp. 71-72).
