Dare to be Different

“Freedom’s goal is to lead us to flourish not to fail.  Freedom’s goal is Truth, Beauty and Goodness.”  These words from the September Joy of the Family Blog, are still ringing the bells of conscience and still ringing the bells in the pursuit of excellence.  God has given us the gift of Free Will!  Essentially, God is Pro-Choice!  That’s right God is Pro-Choice! The difference is that God desires us to choose what is good and true so we can truly flourish as human beings.  God gives us the ability to choose, however, He also gives us the 10 Commandments and the Beatitudes for us to form and live in good conscience.  It is the good choices we make that set us apart and give us strength to love one another and serve one another.  When we make worldly choices, we are only thinking about ourselves and most often we fall into sinful choices.  G. K. Chesterton said, “A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.”  Dare to be different and make Good Choices!  Dare to swim against the stream of our culture.

So how do we choose what is Good?  How do we pursue excellence, that is, Truth, Beauty, and Goodness?  In today’s world how do we make choices and act in ways that are faithful and honor God?  Again, remembering the Beatitudes and the 10 Commandments, the Catechism gives us the wisdom we need for good choices.  First, we must be sure that the action of our choice is Good.  Even if the intention is for the best…the action itself must be Good.  Second, our actions must be with good intention.  We should always have in our thoughts helping and serving others, not our own selfish intentions, or the intention to hurt or wrong someone.  An example would be to befriend someone only to get ahead or to benefit in some way.  The third way to make sure our choice is good is to be sure that no matter what the circumstances of your action, if it is a sinful action, it is not good, period.  Pope Benedict XVI said, “Truth is not determined by a majority vote.”  How can you dare to be different?  How can you show that Christian freedom is different than how our culture views “freedom” today?

Here’s what the Scriptures and our Catholic faith have to say…

Galatians 5: 1 – For Freedom Christ set us free; so, stand firm and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.

1 John 3:19-20 – We will know by this that we are of the truth and will assure our heart before Him in whatever our heart condemns us; for God is greater than our heart and knows all things.

Galatians 5: 13– For you were called for freedom, brothers.  But do not use this freedom as an opportunity for the flesh; rather, serve one another through love.

CCC 1742 – Freedom and Grace.  The grace of Christ is not in the slightest way a rival of our freedom when this freedom accords with the sense of the true and the good that God has put in the human heart.  On the contrary, as Christian experience attests especially in prayer, the more docile we are to the promptings of grace, the more we grow in inner freedom and confidence during trials, such as those we face in the pressures and constraints of the outer world.  By the working of grace, the Holy Spirit educates us in spiritual freedom to make us free collaborators in his work in the Church and in the world.

Proverbs 16:9 – The mind of the man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.