DURING THE LENTEN season I thought often about the mystery of human freedom. I have come to believe that any action performed out of love increases the freedom of the person who does it. For many years I thought that the more difficult an action was the more valuable it was. I now think almost the opposite: an action can be difficult for one person because he or she has not grown in freedom and holiness; for another person the same action may be relatively easy because the individual has grown into a deeper holiness.
For example, if I had volunteered to work with Mother Teresa in Calcutta what she seemed to be able to do with some ease, I probably would have had great difficulty doing because she had reached a greater holiness and deeper freedom than I. While she might have been able to care for the lepers with apparently little emotional strain, I might have found that activity very difficult to do because I was less free than she.
I believe that the holier a person is means the person has reached a new level of freedom. The Blessed Mother must have been incredibly free.
In the history of the church, there have been at least two heresies that misunderstood human freedom. One was Pelagianism and the other was quietism. Looking back on the spirituality, I was taught in the seminary, I suspect there was a strong dose of Pelagianism mixed in with what was genuinely Christian. The heresy of Pelagianism claims that we don’t need God’s grace, that we save ourselves. I guess what characterizes all heresies is that they lack balance. The heretic sees something clearly but misses something else.
The heresy of quietism goes to the other extreme and almost seems the direct opposite of Pelagianism. It claims that that God does everything, that we don’t need to cooperate with God. We can be completely passive and we will be redeemed by God. The wonderful, deeply mysterious truth lies between these two extreme views.
Catholic doctrine is that we can do nothing virtuous or in any way move toward a deeper relationship with our heavenly Father without the help of the Holy Spirit. Reciting a prayer, visiting the sick, burying the dead, reaching out in love to help someone who is lonely or who is mourning would be valueless if not inspired by the Holy Spirit. Alone we can do nothing of any worth. Cooperating with the Holy Spirit, the sky is the limit!
When we come to believe that the Holy Spirit is completely involved in our journey toward our Father, we may tend to think that the Spirit is forcing us to act in a certain manner. Not so. Part of the great mystery concerning the Holy Spirit’s involvement in our lives is that the Holy Spirit, instead of taking away or minimizing our freedom, helps us to reach a new level of freedom.
Our freedom increases and deepens. We reach a new level of holiness. When a human person loves us, that person can help us by freeing us. If this can happen through the love bestowed on us by a human person, what can happen to us when Infinite Love touches us? We tend to think that the Holy Spirit makes or forces us to act a certain way. Love does not force or constrain. Love liberates. Infinite Love can move us to be saints.
The atheistic philosopher Jean Paul Sartre thought that freedom and God could not co-exist. His view was that if we are free then there cannot be God because God would overpower us and we would become puppets or robots. We would be forced to do what God wanted us to do. Sartre thought that because we are free, there is no role for God. I think that the error Sartre made was to think of God as a physical cause forcing things to happen. If God is a love cause then Sartre’s objection dissolves. Love causes freedom.
All the commandments and rules in the Catholic Church, which often people imagine take away freedom, are really to help us be free. The same can be said of the sacraments. If there is any reality in the Church, which in no way nourishes freedom, it should be removed. God created free human beings and that freedom should lead us to a deeper love and holiness. The greatest freedom is the freedom of the sons and daughters of God.
Father Lauder is a philosophy professor at St. John’s University, Jamaica. He presents two 15-minute talks from his lecture series on the Catholic Novel, every Tuesday at 9 p.m. on NET-TV.