164. Seventh Tuesday of Easter

Meditations no. 210 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

Our dedication has to be complete and filial.

O lux beatissima, / reple cordis intima / tuorum fidelium: O most blessed Light divine, shine within these hearts of thine, and our inmost being fill! The purpose of our life is to give glory to God. But there are many good things in this world and they are capable of diverting our attention from focusing exclusively on God. We have no better way of giving glory to God than by living our dedication to the service of souls with ever greater love.

God’s love is a jealous love. He is not satisfied if we come to meet him with conditions. He longs for us to give ourselves completely, without keeping dark corners in our heart, where the joy and happiness of grace and the supernatural gifts cannot reach. Perhaps you are thinking, “If I say ‘yes’ to this exclusive Love, might I not lose my freedom?”

Aided and enlightened by our Lord, who is presiding over us in this period of prayer, I trust that this question will become clearer for you and me.

Each one of us has at some time or other experienced that serving Christ our Lord involves suffering and hardship; to deny this would imply that we had not yet found God. A soul in love knows, however, that when such suffering comes it is only a fleeting impression; the soul soon finds that the yoke is easy and the burden light, because Jesus is carrying it upon his shoulders as he embraced the wood of the Cross when our eternal happiness was at stake. But there are people who do not understand. They rebel against the Creator, in a sad, petty, impotent rebellion, and they blindly repeat the futile complaint recorded in the Psalms: Let us break away from their bondage, rid ourselves of their toils. They shrink from the hardship of fulfilling their daily task with heroic silence and naturalness, without show or complaint. They have not realized that even when God’s will seems painful and its demands wounding, it coincides perfectly with our freedom, which is only to be found in God and his plans.

Such people barricade themselves behind their freedom. “My freedom! My freedom!” they cry. They have their freedom, but they don’t use it. They look at it, they set it up, a clay idol for their petty minds to worship. Is this freedom? What use is this treasure to them, if there is no commitment guiding their whole life? Such behaviour goes against their very dignity and nobility as human beings. They are left aimless, with no clear path to guide their footsteps on this earth. You and I have met such people. They then let themselves be carried away by childish vanity, by selfish conceit, by sensuality.

Their freedom turns out to be barren, or produces fruits which even humanly speaking are ridiculous. A person who does not choose, with complete freedom, an upright code of conduct, sooner or later ends up being manipulated by others. He will lead a lazy, parasitic existence, at the mercy of what others decide. He will let himself be blown to and fro by any wind whatsoever, and it will always be others who make up his mind for him. These are waterless clouds, carried hither and thither by the winds, autumn trees that bear no fruit, doubly dead and rootless, even though they may try to disguise their lack of character, courage, and honesty behind a smokescreen of constant chatter and excuses.

Self-giving is the exercise of our freedom.

We give more glory to God by offering him our best talents as a holocaust, than by making vain use of them. As with the sacrifice of Abel, God is pleased when we offer him the best that we have, what we value most. Nothing is too great to give him. Furthermore, we are children of God, and our obligations as children towards God our Father are not the same as those that can be imposed on strangers. To the children fall duties involving more sacrifice and more generosity, which would never be accepted willingly by hirelings.

Since our will is the most personal of our possessions, to ask the Holy Spirit to fill the inmost depths of our heart is to ask him to teach us to put our will totally at God’s disposal. This is the best way of exercising our freedom. Our Lord, precisely because he was the Son of God, did not think it beneath him to take the form of a slave; and we too will try to give ourselves unconditionally into the hands of our Father God.

We will never fully understand Jesus’ freedom. It is immense, infinite, as is his love. But the priceless treasure of his generous holocaust should move us to ask, “Why, my Lord, have you granted me this privilege which I can use to follow in your footsteps, but also to offend you?” Thus we come to appreciate that freedom is used properly when it is directed towards the good; and that it is misused when men are forgetful and turn away from the Love of loves. Personal freedom, which I defend and will always defend with all my strength, leads me to ask with deep conviction, though I am well aware of my own weakness: “What do you want from me, Lord, so that I may freely do it?”

Reject the deception of those who appease themselves with the pathetic cry of “Freedom! Freedom!” Their cry often masks a tragic enslavement, because choices that prefer error do not liberate. Christ alone sets us free, for he alone is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

Let us ask ourselves once again, here in the presence of God: “Lord, why have you given us this power? Why have you entrusted us with the faculty of choosing you or rejecting you? You want us to make good use of this power. Lord, what do you want me to do?” His reply is precise, crystal-clear: You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart and with your whole soul and with your whole mind.

Don’t you see? Freedom finds its true meaning when it is put to the service of the truth which redeems, when it is spent in seeking God’s infinite Love which liberates us from all forms of slavery. Each passing day increases my yearning to proclaim to the four winds the inexhaustible treasure that belongs to Christianity: the glorious freedom of the children of God! This is essentially what is meant by a good will, which teaches us to pursue good, after having distinguished it from evil.

The fruit of a life given to God.

Only when a man is faithful to grace and decides to place the Cross in the centre of his soul, denying himself for the love of God, detaching himself in a real way from all selfishness and false human security, only then - when a man lives by faith in a real way -will he receive the fullness of the great fire, the great light, the great comfort of the Holy Spirit.

Certainly self-giving can be very hard at times. At such moments we should remain faithful to the commitment of love we freely made in response to God’s grace. It is utterly false to oppose freedom and self-surrender, because self-surrender is a consequence of freedom. Look, when a mother sacrifices herself for love of her children, she has made a choice, and the more she loves, the greater will be her freedom. If her love is great, her freedom will bear much fruit Her children’s good derives from her blessed freedom, which presupposes self-surrender, and from her blessed self-surrender, which is precisely freedom.

But, you might say, when we have attained our heart’s desire, our search will be over. Does freedom vanish then? I assure you that it will then be more active than ever, because love is not content with a routine fulfilment of duty. Love is incompatible with boredom or apathy. To love means to renew our dedication every day, with loving deeds of service.

I insist, and I would like to engrave this deep in your hearts, that freedom and self-surrender are not contradictory. They sustain one another. Freedom can only be given up for love; I cannot conceive any other reason for surrendering it. And I am not just playing with words or phrases. When people give themselves freely, at every moment of their self-surrender, freedom renews their love; to be renewed in that way is to be always young, generous, capable of high ideals and great sacrifices. I remember how pleased I was when I was told that the Portuguese term for young people is os novos, the new ones. That is just what they are. I tell you this because, although I have been around a good many years, when I pray at the foot of the altar to God who gives joy to my youth, I feel young and I know that I will never consider myself old. If I keep true to my God, Love will constantly vivify me. My youth will be renewed like that of the eagle.

It’s because we love freedom that we tie ourselves down. Only pride sees such bonds as a heavy chain. True humility, which is taught us by the One who is meek and humble of heart, shows that his yoke is easy and his burden light: his yoke is freedom and love and unity; his yoke is the Life which he won for us on the Cross.

And after the Cross - let us not forget - comes the glorious Resurrection and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. In the life of Christ the Resurrection and Pentecost were preceded by Calvary. This is the order that must be followed in the life of any Christian. We are, as St Paul tells us, heirs indeed of God and joint heirs with Christ, provided, however, we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified with him. The Holy Spirit comes to us as a result of the Cross - as a result of our total abandonment to the will of God, of seeking only his glory and renouncing ourselves completely.

This is the way that leads straight to God: total renunciation of ourselves and of what we possess. It is worthwhile asking for this gift for everyone from our Lady, remembering her loving submission to God’s will: Fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum, be it done unto me according to your word.