FORMATION FILES: Collected Reflections IV: Free Will, Part II: "The beauty of our choices depends on love"

Formation discussions over the years with Inquirers, Candidates, and Perpetually Professed Secular Franciscans are the foundation for this ongoing series of reflections. Many thanks to my brothers and sisters whose insights have served as the springboard for this endeavor.

 Fred Conforti, MD, OFS

 FREE WILL, Part II: 

“The Beauty of Our Choices Depends on Love.”

In our last FORMATION FILES session we spoke of Blessed John Duns Scotus’s work on free will, specifically his return to Augustine with an emphasis on achieving the moral goal that is relationship, with the expression of self-gift, commitment, solidarity. Let’s move ahead by exploring the possibility of a Franciscan strategy for making moral decisions using our free will with an entirely God-centered approach. It is the strategy that powers conversion, and it has its foundation in:

      · Christ, who Francis imitated to near perfection;

· Mary, who Francis made the “protectress and advocate” of the Franciscan family (OFS Rule, 9);

· Francis, who “made Christ the inspiration and center of his life with God and people” (OFS Rule, 4), laying the basis for a universal theology based on the Augustinian tradition of relationship.

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Christ called us to “be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5: 48). Jesus tells the rich young man who has diligently kept the commandments that, If he wishes to be perfect, he must make a critical choice: embrace poverty, sell all that you have, break your attachments with worldly things, give freely and entirely of yourself, and “Follow me.” The young man has high regard for Christ but he balks at the invitation to a life of discipleship, a life in which he may have “nowhere to lay his head” (Matthew 8: 20). ¹  A freely willed, rational decision to be sure, but not one that fits our definition of freedom in its highest form.

 Early in the 19th century the philosopher Søren Kierkegard wrote a wonderful brief essay entitled Followers, Not Admirers. “[Christ] never asks for admirers, worshippers, or adherents,” he writes. “No, he calls disciples. It is not adherents of a teaching but followers of a life Christ is looking for.” Francis understood this; our Rule states it:

 The Franciscan family . . . unites all members of the people of God . . . who recognize that they are called to follow Christ in the footsteps of St. Francis of Assisi (OFS Rule, 1)

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During this month of February we commemorate the apparitions of Our Blessed Lady at Lourdes (11 February). Our Blessed Mother chose to fully free herself from worldly attachments in order to follow Jesus, an example of expressing freedom in its highest form. Christ Himself commented on the significance of this:

While he was speaking, a woman from the crowd called out and said to him: “Blessed is the womb that carried you and the breasts at which you nursed.” He replied, “Rather, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it” (Luke 11: 27-28).

Here is Christ going so far as to say that His mother was blessed not merely because she bore and raised Him; even these matters of human endeavor, while inimitably noble, had to be superseded by an embrace of the obedience of faith. Unlike the rich young man, distracted by the world, Mary answered the call to discipleship. She exerted all of her power and ability, her love, in pursuit of the moral goal that was relationship in total unity with God. Her love allowed her actions to flow forth in self-gift and commitment, with faith and “full of grace”. As mentioned, achieving Mary’s level of freedom to “walk the walk” demands completely ignoring the worldly distractions that constrained the rich young man. Regardless, In order to act in pursuit of Mary’s level of freedom, we must first choose, as Francis did, to invite God into our lives.

This brings to mind an image from my youth: The priest’s wood entry door to the confessional in my hometown parish church bore an image in relief of Christ knocking at a door. His head was inclined toward the door waiting for a response, bringing to mind one of John’s visions in Revelation 3: 14-22. Images of “Christ Knocking at Heart’s Door” became popular in 19th century art, but this carving bears a peculiarity that I have often found absent in similar images: The door has no handle on Christ’s side. We invite Christ in by choice; conversely, only we can close the door once it is opened.

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From Christ, who is God; to Mary, undistracted by the world, who followed Him perfectly; on to Francis. Wonderful Francis, so distracted early on by the world, whose eyes were opened (albeit in piecemeal fashion) to the possibility (the necessity, really) of a life focused entirely on God by imitating Christ. It is beyond our scope to focus on the unique aspects of this conversion. But it certainly was unique, and the fallout was likewise unique. Francis is not often thought of as a theologian. But make no mistake about it. He espoused a theology based on the primacy of Christ that is all about striving to accomplish the highest level of freedom, attaining the moral goal of relationship — to God as Creator, to each other as human beings, to nature, the environment, the planet, the universe.

Both Blessed John Duns Scotus and St. Bonaventure, Francis’ immediate successors, worked energetically to focus the world’s attention on this strategy for conversion. It is a strategy based on the sacrifice of our free will by choosing self-control, self-restraint, and self-mastery, as Christ taught and as Mary achieved. This very act of sacrifice is a decision for the poverty that is spoken of in both the law of love and the Beatitudes. It reveals our graced nature, allowing us to lay the groundwork for the moral development that allows us to engage our fellow beings in the dialogue that makes possible respect, equality, peaceful coexistence, love. This sacrifice of will is necessary in order to use the goods of the earth in a responsible way, the key to sustainability. Moral maturity is expressed by living simply and containing consumption, allowing us to function in the world as responsible citizens, with esteem for the accomplishments of our forebears and with hope for future generations. In Francis’ world we do not compete with others in order to maintain our position on a historical pendulum that swings alternately from conservative to liberal, right to left, back and forth. In Francis’ world, a world in which Christ is present in every element of His universe, and especially in our fellow beings, we are called to move forward together.

 What an exceptional feature of moral choice! What a beautiful strategy for helping to make great dreams come true!

On Sunday 22 November of last year, the Feast of Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, Pope Francis in his homily during Mass at the Vatican spoke to the youth of our time:

 Yet how do we begin to make great dreams come true? With great choices. . . . at the last judgement, the Lord will judge us on the choices we have made. He . . . draws out the consequences of our choices, brings them to light and respects them. Life . . . is a time for making robust, decisive, eternal choices. Trivial choices lead to a trivial life; great choices to a life of greatness. Indeed, we become what we choose, for better or for worse. If we choose to steal, we become thieves. If we choose to think of ourselves, we become self-centered. If we choose to hate, we become angry. If we choose to spend hours on a cell phone, we become addicted. Yet if we choose God, daily we grow in his love, and if we choose to love others, we find true happiness. Because the beauty of our choices depends on love.

 ¹  There are many examples in the Gospels of “wanna-be followers” of Jesus who refused to make the commitment. Nicodemus (see John 3: 1-10) is probably the most famous; Judas, of course, is the most infamous, and there are others ( Matthew 8: 18-20 and Luke 9: 57-58: ‘the well-meaning scribe’; Matthew 8: 21-22 and Luke 9: 59-60: ‘Let me go first and bury my father.’ ; Luke 9: 61-62: ‘…let me say farewell to my family …’).