Fr. Eunan McDonnell, in his book on The Concept of Freedom in the Writings of St. Francis De Sales probes into the deeper elements of freedom.
He says, “There is a true freedom and an illusory freedom. The choice of the true good produces a good action that is graced, leading to genuine freedom; the choice of an apparent good is an evil action that is sinful and deprives one of true freedom. Rather than the moralistic language of good and evil, it is the theological language of grace and sin that predominates in the Salesian expose on freedom. It is within this context that the dynamic of attraction and resistance takes on a pivotal role in the Salesian understanding of freedom. An analysis of the term freedom sustains this argument as we see this dynamic played out between grace and sin, inspiration and resistance, freely consenting and abusing one’s liberty, self-sacrifice and self-love. Within this interplay of divine and human freedom, the centrality of our free will to cooperate or resist needs to be emphasized.”1
1. page 84
Reflection:
Recall some situations in which you freely chose to either cooperate or resist what you perceived as the Divine Will. What were the effects of these choices? How do you perceive freedom in light of them?