God's will and my freedom - resources

 
Photo by Maria Forest on Unsplash
 
 

These are some resources that were mentioned during the talk on "God’s Will and My Freedom”.


Let me tell you about an event of my own personal life which happened many years ago. One day I was with a friend of mine, a man with a good heart but who did not have faith. Pointing toward a globe he said, "Look, from North to South, from East to West." "What do you want me to look at?" I asked. His answer was: "The failure of Christ. For twenty centuries people have been trying to bring his doctrine to men's lives, and look at the result." I was filled with sadness. It is painful to think that many people still don't know our Lord, and that among those who do know him, many live as though they did not. But that feeling lasted only a moment. It was shortly overcome by love and thankfulness, because Jesus has wanted every man to cooperate freely in the work of redemption. He has not failed. His doctrine and life are effective in the world at all times. The redemption carried out by him is sufficient, and more than sufficient.

God does not want slaves, but children. He respects our freedom. The work of salvation is still going on, and each one of us has a part in it. It is Christ's will, St Paul tells us in impressive words, that we should fulfil in our flesh, in our life, what is lacking in his passion, "for the good of his body, which is the Church. / St Josemaria Escriva


Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way. / Viktor Frankl


Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. / Viktor Frankl


Freedom is the power, rooted in reason and will, to act or not to act, to do this or that, and so to perform deliberate actions on one's own responsibility. By free will one shapes one's own life. Human freedom is a force for growth and maturity in truth and goodness; it attains its perfection when directed toward God, our beatitude. / Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 1731


The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil. / Hannah Arendt


Resources

Jacques Philippe, Interior Freedom

Saint Josemaria Escriva, Homily - Freedom, A Gift from God

Bishop Barron commentary on the series, Unorthodox - YouTube Link
This commentary is very good but we wouldn’t recommend watching Unorthodox.

 
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