List of points

Let us ask ourselves once again, here in the presence of God: 'Lord, why have you given us this power? Why have you entrusted us with the faculty of choosing you or rejecting you? You want us to make good use of this power. Lord, what you do want me to do?' His reply is precise, crystal-clear: 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart and with thy whole soul and with thy whole mind.'

Don't you see? Freedom finds its true meaning when it is put to the service of the truth which redeems, when it is spent in seeking God's infinite Love which liberates us from all forms of slavery. Each passing day increases my yearning to proclaim to the four winds this inexhaustible treasure that belongs to christianity: 'the glorious freedom of the children of God!' This is essentially what is meant by a 'good will', which teaches us to pursue 'good, after having distinguished it from evil'.

I would like you to meditate on a fundamental point, which brings home to us the responsibility we have for our own consciences. Nobody else can choose for us: 'men's supreme dignity lies in this, that they are directed towards the good by themselves, and not by others'. Many of us have inherited the Catholic faith from our parents, and, by the grace of God, supernatural life began in our souls from the moment we were baptised as new-born infants. But we must renew throughout our lives, and every day of our lives, our determination to love God above all things. 'He is a Christian, a true Christian, who subjects himself to the rule of the one and only Word of God,' without laying down conditions to his obedience, and being ever ready to resist the devil's temptings by adopting the same attitude as Christ did: 'Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and serve none but Him.'

'"God created man in the beginning and he left him in the power of his own free will" (Sir 15:14). This could not be so unless man had freedom of choice.' We are answerable to God for all the actions we freely perform. There is no room here for anonymity. Each one finds himself face to face with his Lord, and he can decide to live as God's friend or as his enemy. This is the beginning of the path of the interior struggle which is a lifelong undertaking because, as long as we are on this earth, we will never achieve complete freedom.

Moreover, our Christian faith tells us to ensure that everyone enjoys a climate of freedom, the first step for this being to remove any element of insidious compulsion in the manner of presenting the faith. 'If we are brought to Christ by force, we believe without wanting to; this is violence, not freedom. We can enter the Church unwillingly. We can approach the altar unwillingly. We can even receive the Sacrament unwillingly. But we can only believe if we want to.' It is clear also that, when one reaches the use of reason, personal freedom is required to enter the Church, and to correspond to the continual calls which Our Lord makes to us.

In the parable of the wedding feast, when the master of the house finds out that some guests have declined his invitation with poor excuses, he tells his servant, 'Go out into the highways and hedgerows and compel — compelle intrare — people to come in.' Surely this is coercion, an act of violence against the legitimate freedom of each individual conscience?

If we meditate on the Gospel and reflect on the teachings of Jesus, we will not mistake these commands for coercion. See how gently Christ invites: 'If you have a mind to be perfect… If any man would come after me…' His compelle intrare implies no violence, either physical or moral. Rather, it reflects the power of attraction of Christian example, which shows in its way of acting the power of God: 'See how the Father attracts. He delights in teaching, and not in imposing necessity on men. That is how he attracts men towards himself.'

When we breathe this air of freedom we see clearly that evil is an enslavement, not a liberation. 'He who sins against God keeps the freedom of his will to the extent that he is free from coercion, but he has lost it in that he is no longer free from blame.' Such a person may show that he has acted according to his preferences, but he does not speak with the voice of true freedom, because he has become the slave of his decision and he has decided for the worst, for the absence of God, where there is no freedom to be found.

I tell you once again: I accept no slavery other than that of God's Love. This is because, as I have told you on other occasions, religion is the greatest rebellion of men, who refuse to live like animals, who are dissatisfied and restless until they know their Creator and are on intimate terms with him. I want you to be rebels, free and unfettered, because I want you — it is Christ who wants us! — to be children of God. Slavery or divine sonship, this is the dilemma we face. Children of God or slaves to pride, to sensuality, to the fretful selfishness which seems to afflict so many souls.

Love of God marks out the way of truth, justice and goodness. When we make up our minds to tell Our Lord, 'I put my freedom in your hands,' we find ourselves loosed from the many chains that were binding us to insignificant things, ridiculous cares or petty ambitions. Then our freedom, which is a treasure beyond price, a wonderful pearl that it would be a tragedy to cast before swine, will be used by us entirely to learn how to do good.

This is the glorious freedom of the children of God. Christians who let themselves be browbeaten or become inhibited or envious in the face of the licentious behaviour of those who have not accepted the Word of God, show that they have a very poor idea of the faith. If we truly fulfil the law of Christ — that is if we make the effort to do so, because we will not always fully succeed — we will find ourselves endowed with a wonderful gallantry of spirit that does not need to look elsewhere to discover the full meaning of human dignity.

Our faith is not in any way a burden or a limitation. What a poor idea of Christianity one would have if one thought that way! When we decide for God we lose nothing, and we gain everything. He who at the expense of his soul 'secures his own life, will lose it; it is the man who loses his life for my sake that will secure it'.

We have drawn the winning card, the first prize. If anything prevents us from seeing this clearly, let us look inside our own soul. We may find that our faith is weak, that we have little personal contact with God, that our life of prayer is impoverished. We must beg Our Lord, through his Mother who is our Mother too, to increase his love in us, to grant us a taste of the sweetness of his presence. Only when we love do we attain the fullest freedom: the freedom of not wanting ever to abandon, for all eternity, the object of our love.

'I will release you from captivity, wherever you may be.' We shake off slavery, through prayer: we know we are free, borne on the wings of a lover's nuptial song, a canticle of love, which makes us want never to be parted from God. It is a new mode of going about this earth, a mode that is divine, supernatural, marvellous. Remembering oft-repeated phrases of the Spanish Golden Age, we may like to taste for ourselves that truth: 'I am alive; or rather, not I; it is Christ that lives in me!'

One gladly accepts the need to work in this world and for many years, because Jesus has few friends here below. Let us not turn away from our duty to live our whole life — to the last drop — in the service of God and his Church. And all this, freely: in libertatem gloriae filiorum Dei, qua libertate Christus nos liberavit; with the freedom of the children of God which Jesus won for us by dying on the tree of the Cross.