NOTE: THIS HANDOUT HAS BEEN REVISED AND UPDATED SINCE THE JUNE 2 CLASS
Catechism of the Catholic Church:
1730 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."[26] Man is rational and therefore like God; he is created with free will and is master over his acts.[27]
1731 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.
1745 Freedom characterizes properly human acts. It makes the human being responsible for acts of which he is the voluntary agent. His deliberate acts properly belong to him.
1746 The imputability or responsibility for an action can be diminished or nullified by ignorance, duress, fear, and other psychological or social factors.
1747 The right to the exercise of freedom, especially in religious and moral matters, is an inalienable requirement of the dignity of man. But the exercise of freedom does not entail the putative right to say or do anything.
1748 "For freedom Christ has set us free" (Gal 5:1).
Thoughts from First Conversations of Cala Figuera:
1. Only in freedom does a human being reflect his/her quality as a person.
2. To love is to make another person’s freedom possible.
3. Freedom is the right to be honest.
4. If one tries to motivate a person from the outside, one only succeeds in depersonalizing him. But, if one succeeds in discovering and awakening that person’s true (interior) motivating force, one helps him to grow as a person; to feel joy in that growth; and to have the good taste and excitement to exercise his talents with clarity and vitality – always in constant development to fullness.
5. Many are opposed to the demands of truth because they believe them to be in conflict with the need they feel to find happiness.
6. The truth that “God loves me” motivates the person, from within; and, drives events and things to their most radical originality, to their most vital creativity and to their overflowing fullness.
Discussion Questions
1. What does this respect for human dignity and freedom require of us during the “pre-Cursillo” and the 3-day weekend?
2. What does human freedom demand of us personally and in our dealing with others in our 4th day (Group Reunion, Ultreya)?
4 comments:
Someone during class asked what the 'magisterium' is.I didn't know either but just plowed ahead. From now on I will take more time in my study to be more thorough.
I found this on the internet:
Magisterium (Lat. magister, a master):
The Church's divinely appointed authority to teach the truths of religion,
"Going therefore, teach ye all nations... teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you" (Matt. xxviii, 19-20). This teaching is infallible: "And behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world" (ibid.).
The solemn magisterium is that which is exercised only rarely by formal and authentic definitions of councils or popes. Its matter comprises dogmatic definitions of æcumenical councils or of the popes teaching ex cathedra, or of particular councils, if their decrees are universally accepted or approved in solemn form by the pope; also creeds and professions of faith put forward or solemnly approved by pope or æcumenical council. The ordinary magisterium is continually exercised by the Church especially in her universal practices connected with faith and morals, in the unanimous consent of the Fathers (q.v.) and theologians, in the decisions of Roman Congregations concerning faith and morals, in the common sense (q.v.) of the faithful, and various historical documents in which the faith is declared. All these are founts of a teaching which as a whole is infallible. They have to be studied separately to determine how far and in what conditions each of them is an infallible source of truth.
A CATHOLIC DICTIONARY (THE CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPÆDIC DICTIONARY)
Edited By Donald Attwater
New York, The Macmillan Company, 1962.
(Copyright 1958, Third Edition)
Library of Congress catalog card number: 58-5797
I found this in the L Osservatore Romano from the vatican on this same topic:
Unity found by coming out of self
St Maximus demonstrates that man does not find his unity, the integration of himself or his totality within himself but by surpassing himself, by coming out of himself.
Thus, also in Christ, by coming out of himself, man finds himself in God, in the Son of God. It is not necessary to amputate man to explain the Incarnation; all that is required is to understand the dynamism of the human being who is fulfilled only by coming out of himself; it is in God alone that we find ourselves, our totality and our completeness.
Hence, we see that the person who withdraws into himself is not a complete person but the person who is open, who comes out of himself, becomes complete and finds himself, finds his true humanity, precisely in the Son of God.
For St Maximus, this vision did not remain a philosophical speculation; he saw it realized in Jesus' actual life, especially in the drama of Gethsemane. In this drama of Jesus' agony, of the anguish of death, of the opposition between the human will not to die and the divine will which offers itself to death, in this drama of Gethsemane the whole human drama is played out, the drama of our redemption.
St Maximus tells us that, and we know that this is true, Adam (and we ourselves are Adam) thought that the "no" was the peak of freedom. He thought that only a person who can say "no" is truly free; that if he is truly to achieve his freedom, man must say "no" to God; only in this way he believed he could at last be himself, that he had reached the heights of freedom.
This tendency also carried within it the human nature of Christ, but went beyond it, for Jesus saw that it was not the "no" that was the height of freedom. The height of freedom is the "yes", in conformity with God's will. It is only in the "yes" that man truly becomes himself; only in the great openness of the "yes", in the unification of his will with the divine, that man becomes immensely open, becomes "divine".
What Adam wanted was to be like God, that is, to be completely free. But the person who withdraws into himself is not divine, is not completely free; he is freed by emerging from himself, it is in the "yes" that he becomes free; and this is the drama of Gethsemane: not my will but yours.
It is by transferring the human will to the divine will that the real person is born, it is in this way that we are redeemed.
This, in a few brief words, is the fundamental point of what St Maximus wanted to say and here we see that the whole human being is truly at issue; the entire question of our life lies here.
In Africa St Maximus was already having problems defending this vision of man and of God. He was then summoned to Rome. In 649 he took an active part in the Lateran Council, convoked by Pope Martin I to defend the two wills of Christ against the Imperial Edict which - pro bono pacis - forbade discussion of this matter. Pope Martin was made to pay dearly for his courage. Although he was in a precarious state of health, he was arrested and taken to Constantinople. Tried and condemned to death, the Pope obtained the commutation of his sentence into permanent exile in the Crimea, where he died on 16 September 655, after two long years of humiliation and torment.
It was Maximus' turn shortly afterwards, in 662, as he too opposed the Emperor, repeating: "It cannot be said that Christ has a single will!" (cf. PG 91, cc. 268-269). Thus, together with his two disciples, both called Anastasius, Maximus was subjected to an exhausting trial although he was then over 80 years of age.
The Emperor's tribunal condemned him with the accusation of heresy, sentencing him to the cruel mutilation of his tongue and his right hand - the two organs through which, by words and writing, Maximus had fought the erroneous doctrine of the single will of Christ.
I find this idea of God creating us with freedom of choice very interesting. Without freedom what are we? With freedom, we are free to gives thanks and praise to our Lord and God. We are also free to deny God's existance and to do everything in this world but serve our Lord. I'm still learning everyday that this freedom thing is a gift from God and that I must use my freedom to emulate Christian values. Decision making for me is the focal point for me, I want to make good decisions that will bring me into a more inspiring relationship with God. I will keep working on my decision making, during my Cursillo No. 701 Deacon Scot Palmer mentioned when making a decision determine if that decision brings you closer to God or away from God. I appreciate that our Lord has given us free will to make decisions. I will continue to try to make good decisions everyday but boy is it a struggle. I just try and remember those important words... "all for the greater glory of God"
Peace and Love to all God's children and always remember Cursillistas- Christ counts on You.....
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