"God calls us to freedom. But instead of being given to us instantaneously and in full measure, this freedom is built up progressively and patiently day by day, by being faithful to God's calls. .. As the story in Genesis of creation and the fall makes clear, sin is a rejection of life as God's child, bringing enslavement with it. Through pride, human beings refuse to accept life and happiness from the Father's hands, with confident and loving dependency, preferring to be the source of life for themselves. Suspicions, fears, worries, and inflamed desires are the result. Looking for happiness not to God, but to ourselves, we feverishly seek it in things...
Openness to God's calls frees us from pride. It sweeps aside the attitude of self-sufficiency, the pretense that one is the sole master of one's life. In its place come dependency, availability to another, humility, and confident submission. .. This is the human tragedy: to seek to realize an image of happiness proposed to us by the surrounding culture, without ever finding true happiness. As Saint Paul says: What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him. Sorrow and renunciation, struggle and agony are part of the opening up to reality. This is a work in progress, never complete here on earth, that makes possible for us an ever more abundant and fulfilling life."
- Father Jacques Philippe, from Magnificat, September, 2021
Rather lengthy, but interesting, I thought
Yes. Very good!
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