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)?
