Pope Benedict XVI: “Paradoxically, freedom is achieved through service; we become free, we become servants of one another.”

VATICAN - Holy Father's "lectio divina" on the Letter of Saint Paul to the Galatians at Rome's Major Seminary: "Paradoxically, freedom is achieved through service; we become free, we become servants of one another."

Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) – On February 20, Vigil of Our Lady of Confidence, the Holy Father Benedict XVI made a visit to the Roman Major Seminary, where he held a "lectio divina" for seminarians on the Letter of Saint Paul to the Galatians, reflecting on the phrase: "You are called to freedom."

"Freedom in every epoch has been the great dream of humanity, from the very beginning, but especially in modern times," the Pope said, revealing that "Saint Paul helps us understand this complex reality of freedom, seeing it within the context of fundamental anthropological and theological perspectives." Saint Paul affirms: "This freedom should not become a pretext for living according to the flesh, but through charity you should place yourselves at each others' service," and the Pope explained that: "The absolute ego, which depends on nothing and no one, seems to possess complete freedom. I am free if I do not have to depend on anyone, if I can do anything I want. However, this absolutization of the ego is...degrading to man. This is not the triumph of freedom: libertarianism is not freedom; rather, it is freedom's failure."

Paul then proposes a strong paradox: "freedom is achieved through service; we become free, we become servants of one another. Thus, Paul places the entire problem of freedom in light of the truth about man," the Pope said. "Our truth is that we are, first and foremost, creatures, creatures of God, and we live in a relationship with the Creator. We are relational beings, and only by accepting this fact do we enter the truth. Otherwise we fall into lies and there, in the end, we destroy ourselves." This God and Creator is not a tyrant, like the human tyrants, and "He loves us and our dependence is to be in His love, in which case dependence is freedom. In this manner, in fact, we are in the charity of the Creator, united to Him, to His entire being and power. Hence, this is the first point: being a creature means being loved by the Creator, entering into this relationship of love that He gives us, and with which He precedes us. This is from whence we derive our truth which is also a call to charity."

Benedict XVI then focused on the second kind of relationship: "We are in relationship with God but, at the same time, as human family, we are also in relationship with one another. In other words, human freedom is, on one hand, to be in the joy and great realm of the love of God, but it also implies being only one thing with the other and for the other. There is no freedom in being against the other. If I absolutize myself, I become the other's enemy, we can no longer coexist on earth and the whole of life becomes cruelty and failure. Only a shared freedom is human freedom; in being together we can enter the symphony of freedom. Hence, this is another point of great importance: Only by accepting the other, by accepting also the apparent limitation that respect for the other implies for my freedom, only by inserting myself in the network of dependencies that makes us, finally, only one human family, will I be on the way to common liberation."

"Man needs order and law, to be able to realize his freedom, which is a freedom lived in common," the Pope said. "And how can we find this just order, in which no one is oppressed, but each one can make his own contribution to form this sort of concert of freedom? If there is no common truth of man as it appears in the vision of God, only positivism remains and one has the impression of something imposed even in a violent manner. Hence the rebellion against order and law as if it was a question of slavery."

Continuing with his "lectio divina," the Pope quoted Saint Paul: "For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' After this affirmation the mystery of the Incarnate God appears, the mystery of Christ appears who in his life, Death and Resurrection becomes the living law. Immediately, the first words of our reading -- 'You were called to freedom' -- point to this mystery. We have been called by the Gospel, we have really been called in baptism, to participate in the death and resurrection of Christ, and in this way we have passed from the 'flesh,' from egoism, to communion with Christ. And so we are in the fullness of the law...By participation in the sacraments, by listening to the Word of God, the Divine Will, the divine law really enters our will, our will identifies with his, they become only one will and thus we are really free, we can really do what we will, because we love with Christ, we love in truth and with truth. Therefore, let us pray to the Lord that he will help us on this path that began with baptism, a path of identification with Christ that is always realized again in the Eucharist."

Lastly, the Holy Father made reference to the difficult situation of the community of Galatians, in the "controversies that arise when faith degenerates into intellectualism and humility is substituted by the arrogance of being better than the other." He added: "Today there are similar things when, instead of being inserted in communion with Christ, in the Body of Christ which is the Church, each one wants to be better than the other and with intellectual arrogance wants to be regarded as the best. And thus controversies arise which are destructive, born is a caricature of the Church, which should be one soul and one heart. In St. Paul's warning we should find today a reason to examine our conscience: not to think of being better than the other, but to meet one another in the humility of Christ, in the humility of the Virgin, to enter into the obedience of the faith. Precisely in this way the great realm of truth and freedom in love is really opened also for us."

(SL) (Agenzia Fides 23/2/2009)

Links:
Complete text of the Holy Father's address, in Italian
http://www.fides.org/ita/magistero/bxvi/discorso_seminario_200209.html