Saint Josemaria
Quotations from Saint Josemaria

Love for Freedom

Tags: Freedom, Maturity, Responsibility
The Christian should love other people and therefore respect opinions contrary to his own, and live in harmony and full brotherhood with people who do not think as he does. St Josemaria Escriva.
Convesations with Josemaria Escrivá, 67

God wants us to cooperate with him in this task which he is carrying out in the world. He takes a risk with our freedom. I am deeply moved by the Jesus born in Bethlehem: a defenceless, powerless child, incapable of offering any resistance. God gives himself up to men; he comes close to us, down to our level.

“Though he was in the form of God, he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant.” God respects and bows down to our freedom, our imperfection and wretchedness. He agrees to have his divine treasures carried in vessels of clay; he lets us make them known; God is not afraid of mixing his strength with our weaknesses.
Christ is Passing By, 113

Precisely because of this, I readily understand those words of St Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, which ring out like a wonderful hymn to freedom, ‘God who created you without you, will not save you without you’. Every single one of us, you and I as well, always has the possibility, the unfortunate possibility of rising up against God, of rejecting him (perhaps by our behaviour) or of crying out, ‘We do not want this man to rule over us’.
Friends of God, 23

Ask yourself now (I too am examining my conscience) whether you are holding firmly and unshakeably to your choice of Life? When you hear the most lovable voice of God urging you on to holiness, do you freely answer ‘Yes’? Let us turn our gaze once more to Jesus, as he speaks to the people in the towns and countryside of Palestine. He doesn’t want to force himself upon us. ‘If you want to be perfect...’, he says to the rich young man.
Friends of God, 24

Only if a Christian defends the individual freedom of others — with the personal responsibility that must go with it — only then can he defend his own with human and Christian integrity. I will keep on repeating that our Lord has gratuitously given us a great supernatural gift, divine grace, and another wonderful human gift, personal freedom. To avoid this degenerating into license, we must develop integrity, we must make a real effort to conform our behaviour to divine law, for where the Spirit is, there you find freedom.
Christ is Passing By, 184

To love is to cherish one thought, to live for the person loved, not to belong to oneself, happily and freely with one’s heart and soul to be subjected to another’s will ... and at the same time to one’s own.
Furrow, 797

Do not trust yourself at all, but trust in God for everything
You have never felt so absolutely free as you do now that your freedom is interwoven with love and detachment, with security and insecurity; for you do not trust yourself at all, but trust in God for everything.
Furrow, 787

In order to persevere in following in the footsteps of Jesus, you need always to be free, always to want, and always to make use of your own freedom.
The Forge, 819

I like the motto: “Let each wayfarer follow his way”, the road God has marked out for him, to be followed faithfully, lovingly, even though it is hard.
Furrow, 231

You need formation, because you need a profound sense of responsibility, if you are to encourage and direct the activity of Catholics in public life and do so with the respect that everyone’s freedom deserves, reminding each and every one that they have to be consistent with their faith.
The Forge, 712

We cannot simply fold our arms when a subtle persecution condemns the Church to die of starvation, putting it outside the sphere of public life, and above all obstructing its part in education, culture and family life.
These are not our rights; they are God’s rights. He has entrusted them to us Catholics so that we may exercise them!
Furrow, 310

I cannot understand you when you talk about matters of morals and of faith and you tell me that you are an independent Catholic.
From whom are you independent? That false independence is equivalent to leaving the way of Christ.
Furrow, 357

It is striking how often, even in the name of freedom, many people fear and oppose Catholics being simply good Catholics.
Furrow, 931

The adventure of freedom
I like to speak of the adventure of freedom, because that is how your lives and mine unfold. I insist that it is freely, as children and not as slaves, that we follow the path which Our Lord has marked out for each one of us. We relish our freedom of action as a gift from God. I opt for God because I want to, freely, without compulsion of any kind. And I undertake to serve, to convert my whole life into a means of serving others, out of love for my Lord Jesus. It is this freedom which moves me to cry out that nothing on earth can separate me from the love of Christ (cf. Rom 8:39).
Friends of God, 35

The chance to come nearer to Christ
A Christian has to be ready to share his life with everyone at all times, giving to everyone the chance to come nearer to Christ Jesus. He has to sacrifice his own desires willingly for the sake of others, without separating people into watertight compartments, without pigeon-holing them or putting tags on them as though they were merchandise or dried-up insects. A Christian cannot afford to separate himself from others, because, if he did that, his life would be miserably selfish. He must become “all things to all men, in order to save all men.” (1 Cor 9:22)
If only we lived like this, if only we knew how to saturate our behavior with the good seed of generosity, with a desire for understanding and peace! We would encourage the rightful independence of all men. Each person would take on his own responsibility for the tasks that correspond to him in temporal matters. Each Christian would defend other people’s freedom in the first place, so that he could defend his own as well. His charity would lead him to accept others as they are–because everyone, without any exception, has his weaknesses and makes his mistakes. He would help them, with God’s grace and his own human refinement, to overcome evil, to remove the weeds, so that we can all help each other in living according to our dignity as human beings and as Christians.
Christ Is Passing By, 124

Throughout my years as a priest, whenever I have spoken, or rather shouted, about my love for personal freedom, I have noticed some people reacting with distrust, as if they suspected that my defense of freedom could endanger the faith. Such faint-hearted people can rest assured. The only freedom that can assail the faith is a misinterpreted freedom, an aimless freedom, one without objective principles, one that is lawless and irresponsible. In a word, license. Unfortunately, this is what some people are advocating, and their claim does indeed constitute a threat to the faith.
Friends of God, 32