Freedom according to the Old Testament

 In the book of Deuteronomy (30:19), the people of Israel are told: “I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live.” 

The book of Sirach or Ecclesiasticus (15:14-17) reiterates this point: “It was he who created man in the beginning, and he left him in the power of his own inclination. If you will, you can keep the commandments, and to act faithfully is a matter of your own choice. He has placed before you fire and water: stretch out your hand for whichever you wish. Before a man are life and death, and whichever he chooses will be given to him.”

Freedom according to the CCC

 “God created man a rational being, conferring on him the dignity of a person who can initiate and control his own actions. ‘God willed that man should be “left in the hand of his own counsel,” so that he might of his own accord seek his Creator and freely attain his full and blessed perfection by cleaving to him’ (Gaudium et Spes 17; Sirach 15:14). ‘Man is rational and therefore like God; he is created with free will and is master over his acts’ (St Irenaeus, Adv. haeres. 4,4,3)” (CCC 1730).

“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” (CCC 1731).

“‘Man's dignity therefore requires him to act out of conscious and free choice, as moved and drawn in a personal way from within, and not by blind impulses in himself or by mere external constraint. Man gains such dignity when, ridding himself of all slavery to the passions, he presses forward to his goal by freely choosing what is good and, by his diligence and skill, effectively secures for himself the means suited to this end’ (GS 17)” (CCC 2339)

Dear young people, let me now ask you a question. What will you leave to the next generation? Are you building your lives on firm foundations, building something that will endure? Are you living your lives in a way that opens up space for the Spirit in the midst of a world that wants to forget God, or even rejects him in the name of a falsely-conceived freedom? How are you using the gifts you have been given, the “power” which the Holy Spirit is even now prepared to release within you? What legacy will you leave to young people yet to come? What difference will you make?

(Benedict XVI, Homily, 20 July 2008, WYD 2008, Australia)

Freedom is not only a gift, but also a summons to personal responsibility. Americans know this from experience – almost every town in this country has its monuments honoring those who sacrificed their lives in defense of freedom, both at home and abroad. The preservation of freedom calls for the cultivation of virtue, self-discipline, sacrifice for the common good and a sense of responsibility towards the less fortunate. It also demands the courage to engage in civic life and to bring one’s deepest beliefs and values to reasoned public debate. In a word, freedom is ever new. It is a challenge held out to each generation, and it must constantly be won over for the cause of good (cf. Spe Salvi, 24). Few have understood this as clearly as the late Pope John Paul II. In reflecting on the spiritual victory of freedom over totalitarianism in his native Poland and in eastern Europe, he reminded us that history shows, time and again, that “in a world without truth, freedom loses its foundation”, and a democracy without values can lose its very soul (cf. Centesimus Annus, 46). Those prophetic words in some sense echo the conviction of President Washington, expressed in his Farewell Address, that religion and morality represent “indispensable supports” of political prosperity.

(Benedict XVI, South Lawn of the White House, Washington, D.C. Wednesday, 16 April 2008)

6 Deus, tu scis insipiéntiam meam, *
et delícta mea a te non sunt abscóndita.
7 Non erubéscant in me, qui exspéctant te, *
Dómine, Dómine virtútum.
Non confundántur super me, *
qui quærunt te, Deus Israel.
8 Quóniam propter te sustínui oppróbrium, *
opéruit confúsio fáciem meam;
9 extráneus factus sum frátribus meis *
et peregrínus fíliis matris meæ.
10 Quóniam zelus domus tuæ comédit me, *
et oppróbria exprobrántium tibi cecidérunt super me.
11 Et flevi in ieiúnio ánimam meam, *
et factum est in oppróbrium mihi.
12 Et pósui vestiméntum meum cilícium, *
et factus sum illis in parábolam.
13 Advérsum me loquebántur, qui sedébant in porta, *
et in me canébant, qui bibébant vinum.

God, you know my weakness:
my crimes are not hidden from you.
Let my fate not put to shame those who trust in you,
Lord, Lord of hosts.
Let them not be dismayed on my account,
those who seek you, God of Israel.

For it is for your sake that I am taunted
and covered in confusion:
I have become a stranger to my own brothers,
a wanderer in the eyes of my mother’s children –
because zeal for your house is consuming me,
and the taunts of those who hate you
fall upon my head.

I have humbled my soul with fasting
and they reproach me for it.
I have made sackcloth my clothing
and they make me a byword.
The idlers at the gates speak against me;
for drinkers of wine, I am the butt of their songs.

(Psalm 69:6-13)