In the fourth and fifth meditations offered to Pope Leo XIV and the Roman Curia, Bishop Erik Varden reflected on how the modern debate over \u201cfreedom\u201d challenges Christians.<\/p>\n
In a world where \u201cthe notion of \u2018freedom\u2019 has become contentious in public discourse,\u201d Christians must be clear about what freedom means in the light of faith, Bishop Erik Varden told Pope Leo XIV and members of the Roman Curia during the Lenten retreat.<\/p>\n
\u201cFreedom is a good to which we all aspire; we rise up against anything which threatens to curtail or confine our freedom. As a result, the vocabulary of freedom is an effective rhetorical tool,\u201d Varden said in the fourth meditation of the retreat, delivered on Feb. 24.<\/p>\n
\u201cSuggestions that the freedom of a particular group is at risk will call forth instant responses of outrage on the internet,\u201d he continued, noting that \u201ca variety of political causes in Europe now harness the jargon of freedom. Tensions result. What one segment of society perceives as \u2018liberating\u2019 is found oppressive by others.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOpposing fronts are raised, with the banner of \u2018freedom\u2019 held high on all sides,\u201d Varden said. \u201cBitter conflicts arise from incompatible agendas of purported liberation. This state of affairs poses a challenge for Christians.\u201d<\/p>\n
Varden, a Norwegian Cistercian and bishop-prelate of Trondheim, grounded his reflection in St. Bernard of Clairvaux\u2019s teaching on freedom, insisting that for Christians, true freedom is inseparable from the Son\u2019s loving obedience to the Father.<\/p>\n
\u201cRooting his understanding of freedom in the Son\u2019s Yes! to the Father\u2019s will, Bernard works a revolution in our grasp of what it means to be free,\u201d he said. \u201cChristian freedom is not about seizing the world with force; it is about loving the world with a crucified love magnanimous enough to make us freely wish, one with Christ, to give our lives for it, that it may be set free.\u201d<\/p>\n
Varden also warned against the way \u201cfreedom,\u201d when detached from the person and from truth, can be exploited to justify oppression.<\/p>\n
\u201cCaution is called for when freedom, held hostage by force, is manipulated as a means to legitimate the doings of impersonal subjects like \u2018the Party\u2019, \u2018the Economy\u2019, or even \u2018History\u2019,\u201d he said. \u201cIn a Christian way of thinking, no oppressive policy can be redeemed by invocations of ideological \u2018freedom\u2019. The only meaningful freedom is personal; and one person\u2019s freedom cannot cancel another\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTo subscribe to a Christian idea of freedom is to consent to pain,\u201d Varden added. When Christ says, \u201cResist not evil,\u201d he explained, \u201che does not ask us to countenance injustice. He lets us see that justice\u2019s cause is sometimes best served by suffering for it, refusing to meet force with force.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOur emblem of freedom remains the Son of God who \u2018emptied himself\u2019,\u201d he concluded.<\/p>\n
In the fifth meditation, delivered later that day in the Pauline Chapel, Varden turned again to St. Bernard, focusing on ambition as a distortion of the soul\u2019s relationship to truth.<\/p>\n
\u201cAmbition represents a particular form of capitulation to untruth,\u201d he said. \u201cAmbition is a not very subtly sublimated form of cupidity.\u201d Citing Bernard, he described ambition as \u201ca subtle ill, a secret virus, an occult pest, an artisan of deceit,\u201d adding that it \u201csprings from an \u2018alienation of the mind\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a madness that comes about when truth is forgotten,\u201d Varden said. \u201cThe fact that ambition is a form of insanity makes it ridiculous in any instantiation, but especially so when it occurs in persons given to a state of selfless service.\u201d<\/p>\n
Varden then took up Pilate\u2019s question \u2014 \u201cWhat is truth?\u201d \u2014 saying it must not be left unanswered amid today\u2019s confusion and fear.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople of our time ask this question earnestly, often with remarkable good will, notwithstanding their confusion, fear, and the rush they are always in. We cannot let it go unanswered,\u201d he said. \u201cWe need our best resources to uphold substantial, essential, freeing truth against more or less plausibly shining, more or less fiendish substitutes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIn our predicament, rich in opportunity, it is imperative to see and articulate the world in Christ\u2019s light,\u201d Varden continued. \u201cChrist, who is truth, not only shields us; he renews us, impatient to reveal himself through us to a creation increasingly aware of being subject to futility.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pointing to the Second Vatican Council\u2019s emphasis on sanctity, Varden said the Church\u2019s claim to truth convinces most when it is embodied personally.<\/p>\n
\u201cWas not the universal call to holiness, the call, that is, to embody truth, the strongest note struck by the Second Vatican Council?\u201d he asked. \u201cIt resounded splendidly like a gong throughout its deliberations. The Christian claim to truth becomes compelling when its splendor is made personally evident with sacrificial love in sanctity, cleansed of temptations to temporize.\u201d<\/p>\n
Acest articol a fost publicat ini\u021bial de ACI Stampa, serviciul de limb\u0103 italian\u0103 al EWTN News, \u0219i a fost tradus \u0219i adaptat de EWTN News English.<\/p>\n