I am using my column this week to share with the readers of the Catholic News the opening address I was invited to give at the 2007 National Conference of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal.

“My Sisters and Brothers, we are approaching the end of the Christmas cycle of the Church year. It is a time when the liturgy of the Church highlights the warmth and the unconditional nature of God’s love. It is a time when the liturgy places great emphasis on our obligation of praising and thanking God for all that God has done for us.

 It is a time when celebration concentrates on the joy believers experience as they remember that God has kept his word and the Messiah has come.

The Christmas cycle encourages us to live our faith well and with confidence not only because God has kept his word but also because the Lord will return in glory. When he does, those who have been faithful will rise with him in glory.

The theme that has been chosen for the 15th National Conference is based on Isaiah 9” 4: “Rise up, your yoke is broken, receive the power and live.” It speaks to the issue of living our faith well and confidently. In the Foreword I provided for your booklet, I noted that the biblical context of the text from Isaiah is about the political freedom of the chosen people from the yoke of Assyrian control.

I then stated that in our contemporary context, the pastoral implication of the text from Isaiah is the challenge to free ourselves from whatever limits our ability to belong to the Lord and to experience the joy of relating to God.  

The two issues from the text of Isaiah that I want to pursue with you this evening are: freedom and joy. These are the two elements that enable us to live the Conference theme: receive the power and live. Without these two elements, the Conference theme is only a dream.

Freedom

In the moral theology of the Church, the basis of morality is freedom. I do not refer here to the political freedom of the chosen people that Isaiah spoke of in relation to the Assyrians that was quoted in your theme, I only speak of personal freedom by which we direct our lives.

In speaking of personal freedom, I do not mean in any way to underestimate the importance of political freedom for people. Whenever we watch the international news, we see the terrible effects of a lack of political freedom and its predictable consequences: persecution, oppression, death and hopelessness.

 However, in this address I am only speaking of personal freedom and its relationship to moral responsibility for how we live our lives and how we participate in building Church and nation.

Testimony of Scripture

We know from Scripture that God freely chose to create the world, that God freely created us in his image and likeness and that God gave us stewardship responsibilities to the world for as long as the world will last. However, one aspect of creation that is underappreciated by believers is the fact that in creating us God gave us a share in God’s own creative freedom.

Through this share in God’s creative freedom we are able to love, rise above self and respond to the call of God to become whatever God wants us to become. We can become radically free by accepting the gift of the Holy Spirit in an ongoing manner. The words, ‘in an ongoing manner’ are important because we know that if we become careless we can change our minds.

St Paul counsels us not to abuse our freedom and return to slavery. Paul was absolutely right about freedom. For some, freedom means the ability to do whatever one wants whenever one wants. Not true! Freedom in Christ means the ability with the help of the Spirit to rise above the powers of darkness and choose to live in the truth. John’s gospel tells us, “The truth will set you free.” (Jn 8: 31-36).

Before his address on Friday evening, Archbihsop Gilbert is prayed for. At left is Deborah de Rosia and at right is Cuthbert Mejias. Raymond Syms photo

The power of the Spirit produces true freedom in us by uniting us to the community of the Church. As members of the Church community we receive the power, encouragement and support to become the person God is calling us to be.

The community provides the environment for healing the wounds of sin and selfishness. Without such an environment, the path to freedom becomes much more difficult. The transformation that results from the gradual process of surrender makes us, as St Peter says, “slaves of God” (1 Peter 2: 16).

The Eastern Church describes freedom in a very interesting way. It teaches that “freedom means the ability to choose who your master will be.” Will it be Christ? Will it be evil? Will it be New Age self-absorption?

Once the decision is made to begin the journey to freedom, the challenge becomes how to grow in the process and how to persevere in freedom. We must always remember that although we are children of God, we are also children of Adam. We are an “already but not yet fully” people.

Once again, the role of the community is significant in helping us to become free enough to make a basic commitment to the Lord, to grow in freedom and to remain free. People influence people. Without freedom and community, it is not possible to live the theme of the Conference: ‘receive the power and live.’

Joy

By definition joy means: the happiness that comes from possessing something good.
Joy is related to charity. When charity in our lives reaches the level of maturity required by God, we begin to experience joy – the joy of loving. The fruits of the Holy Spirit have two characteristics: they presume a level of perfection of charity in our lives and they produce a sweetness or tranquil comfort in a person. Paul places joy immediately after love. That is logical. Everyone in love rejoices to be with the one loved.

The happiness that is a part of joy is not just a feeling without foundation. It is the result of the presence of love which itself is open to degrees. The more we love, the more we experience the happiness of joy. As noted above, joy, similar to love and freedom, is open to degrees. One who is not free enough to love will experience little joy. 

Joy is the result of an important three-step process: 1) Looking forward to possessing what we desire; 2) Actually Possessing what we have desired and 3) Appreciating what we now possess. Each part of the three-step process needs the other parts to influence our lives in a meaningful way.

Let’s use the Advent/Christmas cycle as an example of the process.

1) Looking Forward. In Advent, we yearn liturgically for the coming of the Messiah and we look forward to the second coming of the Lord. For people who journey with the Church through Advent and celebrate it joyfully, Christmas is one of the high points of the year.

For people who do not live Advent well, Christmas means very little and the second coming of the Lord is not even an issue for them. They experience little or no joy in their faith. They are not alive in the Lord or spiritually happy.

2) Actually Possessing. At Christmas we actually possess what we have desired and liturgically looked forward to. We celebrate history as if it were happening all over again.  We thank the Father for sending forth his Son and we begin to enjoy a new level of relationship with our God now made visible. We live with confidence because no matter how challenging life becomes we know that Jesus, the Lord of History, will return in glory to judge the living and the dead.

For people who react to Christmas with praise of God, thanksgiving to God, with prayer and celebration, they are filed with joy. In many cases, you can even see that they are joyful and happy. For people who have no reaction to Christmas, it is just another day off from work.

3) Appreciating What We Now Possess. This element is directed to the long-term implications of spirituality. Christmas is part of the liturgical year during which the entire mystery of Christ is celebrated. Christmas is related to the entire liturgical year. It cannot be allowed to become a forgotten element soon after it is celebrated.

The presence of God among us flows from Christmas. Our understanding of the unconditional nature of God’s love for us flows in part from Christmas. The theology of Christmas helps us to recognize selfishness in our lives and challenges us to make the love of Christ visible in our relationship with others. The joyful meaning of Christmas in our lives must be appreciated throughout the entire year.

The method of appreciation

How can extended appreciation be achieved? It can be achieved through meditation and reflection. It can be achieved through music and symbols. It can be achieved through prayer in all its forms: adoration, praise, thanksgiving, petition, intercession. 

One of the customs in some monasteries and religious communities is that on the 25th of each month, a simple form of the nativity scene is placed in the chapel and the community uses the day to reflect on Christmas, its meaning and its application to the present.

 It is intended to help the community appreciate and internalise the meaning of what is celebrated on Christmas: unselfish love, family/community, obedience to the Father, justice and peace. 

For people who work at spirituality as suggested above, joy is a tangible reality in their lives. Their faith is continually fed and fed with the variety contained in the yearlong unfolding of the mystery of Christ.

The more it takes root, the more joy they experience. In fact, they are so happy and peaceful that people who do not live on the same level of faith cannot even understand them. Certainly they are unable to imitate them.

Conclusion

This three-step process helps everyone who is interested to live your theme – receive the power and live. Live in freedom, live in joy. The three-step method disposes all people to open themselves to the ministry of the Holy Spirit. The method is simple to remember: “Looking forward”, “Actually Possessing” and “Appreciating What We Possess”.

What is significant about the method is that it can be applied to any important reality of our lives e.g. vocational choices: the chosen single life, marriage, religious profession, ordination. 
I leave you with these questions and a recommendation:

1) How free are we? 2) How joyful are we? The answer to those questions is directly related to the presence of authentic love in our lives. On one hand, the presence of authentic love in our lives depends to a significant degree on how free we are and how joyful we are as Christians. On the other hand, our freedom and joy make authentic love possible.

Take some time to apply the relational dynamic of freedom, joy and love to your efforts to grow in the life of the Spirit and to live the theme of the Conference – “receive the power and live.”