Your Eminence,
Dear friends,
It is always a great joy for me to be in my Seminary, to see the future priests of my diocese, to be with you under the sign of Our Lady of Confidence [Madonna della Fiducia, patroness of the seminary]. With her to help and accompany us, we have the certainty of always being aided by divine grace. So let us move ahead.
Now let us us see what St. Paul tells us with this text: "You are called to freedom".
Freedom has at all times been the great dream of mankind, even from the start, but particularly in modern times. We know that Luther was inspired by this text from the Letter to the Galatians, and he concluded that the monastic Rule, the hierarchy, the Magisterium, appeared to him as a yoke of slavery from which he had to free himself.
Successively, the Age of Enlightenment was totally guided and penetrated by this desire for freedom which it believed it had achieved. But even Marxism would present itself as a road to freedom.
We ask ourselves tonight: What is freedom? How can we be free? St. Paul helps us to understand the complicated reality of freedom by inserting it in the context of fundamental anthropological and theological views.
He says: "Let this freedom not be a pretext to live according to the flesh, but through charity: be of service to one another".
The rector already told us that 'flesh' here does not mean the body. "Flesh' in the language of St. Paul is his expression for the absolutization of the 'I', that 'I' which wishes to be everything and takes everything for himself: the absolute I that does not depend on anything or anyone, and seems to truly possess freedom definitively - "I am free if I don't depend on anyone, if I can do everything I want".
But it is this absolutization of the I which is the 'flesh' - a degradation of man, not a conquest of freedom. Libertinism is not liberty but the failure of it.
Paul dares to propose a strong paradox: "Through charity, you shall be of service" (in Greek, dolerite): that is, freedom is paradoxically realized if we become servants to each other. And thus, Paul places the entire question of freedom in the light of man's truth.
To reduce oneself to 'flesh' - while apparently elevating oneself to the level of divinity - introduces us to untruth. Because it is not so, in truth: Man is not an absolute. It is not as though man can isolate himself and act only according to his own will. It is against the truth of our being.
Our truth is that, above all, we are creatures, creatures of God, and we live in relationship to our Creator. We are relational beings. Only by accepting this relationality can we enter into the truth. Otherwise, we fall into untruth, and in it, ultimately, we destroy ourselves.
We are creatures, and therefore, dependent on the Creator. During the Enlightenment, this idea appeared, above all to atheits, as a dependence which man had to rid himself of.
The truth is that such a dependency would be fatal only if God the Creator was a tyrant not a good being, only if he were like human tyrants.
But if this Creator loves us and our dependence means being within the space of his love, then dependence is freedom. Indeed, in this way, we are in the charity of the Creator, we are united to him, to all his reality, to all his power.
So this is the first point: to be a creature means being loved by the Creator - to be in this relationship of love that he gives us, that he has provided us. From this above all comes our truth, which is, at the same time, a call to charity.
That is why to see God, to orient oneself to God, to know God, to know his will, to put ourselves within his will - which means, in the love of God - is to enter increasingly into the space of truth.
This path to knowledge of God, of a relationship of love with God, is the extraordinary adventure of our life as Christians, who recognize in Christ the face of God - God who loves us to the Cross, to making us the gift of himself.
But our creatural relationship also implies a second relation; We are in relationship with God, but at the same time, in the human family - we are in relationship with one another.
In other words, human freedom, on the one hand, is to be in the joy and wide space of God's love, but it also implies being one with the other and for the other. There is no freedom against the other.
If I absolutize myself, I become an enemy of the other. We cannot then live with one another, and all of life becomes cruelty, failure. Only shared freedom is human freedom - in being together, we can enter the symphony of liberty.
So this is another point of great importance: Only by accepting the other, accepting even the apparent limitation which comes from freedom to respect the freedom of the other, only by setting myself into the network of human dependency which makes us one single family, only then am I on the path toward our common freedom.
Here is a very important element: What is the measure of shared freedom? We see that man needs order, law, so that he can realize his freedom as a freedom lived in common.
And how can we find this just order, in which no one is oppressed, in which each can give his contribution to this concert of freedom? If there is no common truth for man as there is in the sight of God, then what remains is merely positivism, which is like something imposed in a manner that might be called violent. And with it comes a rebellion against order and law as though they represent slavery.
But if we find the Creator's order in our nature, that order of truth which gives everyone his place, then law and order can become instruments of freedom against the slavery of selfishness.
To serve one another becomes an instrument of freedom, in which we can find a whole political philosophy according to the social doctrine of the Church, which helps us find the common order that gives each of us our place in the common life of mankind.
The first reality to respect is truth. Freedom against truth is not freedom. To serve one another creates the common space of freedom.
Paul continues by saying: "The whole law is fulfilled in one statement, namely, you shall love your neighbor as yourself". Behind this statement is the mystery of God incarnated, the mystery of Christ who, in his life, death and resurrection, became the living law.
The first words of our Reading - "You are called to freedom" - refer right away to this mystery. We have been called by the Gospel, we have been truly called in Baptism, to participation in the death and resurrection of Christ, and in this way, we pass from the 'flesh'. from selfishness, to communion with Christ. And thus, we are in the fullness of the law.
You probably know the beautiful words of St. Augustine: "Dilige et fac quod vis" - Love and do what you will. What Augustine says is the truth if we really understand the word 'love'. "Love and do what you will", but we must have entered into communion with Christ, identified ourselves with his death and resurrection, united to him in communion with his Body.
By participating in the sacraments, by listening to the Word of God, then divine will, divine law, will enter our will; our will identifies itself with his; we become just one will, which makes us truly free. We can do what we wish because we wish with Christ, we wish in truth, and we wish with truth.
Let us pray the Lord to help us in this journey begun in Baptism, a path of identifying with Christ which we realize ever anew in the Eucharist.
In the third Eucharistic Prayer, we say, "We become in Christ one body and one spirit." It is a moment when, through the Eucharist and through our true participation in the death and resurrection of Christ, we become one in spirit with him, we are in an identity of will, which brings us freedom.
Behind the words "The law is fulfilled", behind these words which become reality in communion with Christ, behind Christ, are all the saints who have entered into communion with him, in a unity of being, in a union with his will.
Above all, there appears Our Lady in her humility, in her goodness, in her love. Our Lady gives us confidence, she takes us by the hand, she leads us, she helps us in the path towards uniting with the will of God, as she has been from the first moment, a union she expressed in her 'Fiat' [Fiat volunta tua - Thy will be done].
Finally, after these beautiful things, Paul's Letter also refers to the rather sad situation of the Christians of Galatia, when he writes: "If you go on biting and devouring one another [like beasts], beware that you are not consumed by one another... I say, then: live by the Spirit" (Gal 5,14.16).
It seems to me that in that community - which was no longer on the path of communion with Christ, but living by the external laws of the 'flesh' - then controversies will naturally arise, and Paul says: "You have become like beasts, biting one another".
Thus he refers to the disputes that arise when faith degenerates into intellectualism, and humility is replaced by the arrogance of feeling superior to others.
We see very well that even today, there are similar things, in which instead of placing oneself in communion with Christ, in the Body of Christ which is the Church, everyone wants to be superior to the other, and with intellectual arrogance wants to make others believe that he is the best. Thus, disputes arise which are destructive, giving rise to a caricature of the Church, which should be of one spirit and one heart.
In this warning from St. Paul, we should find today a reason for an examination of conscience: not to think one is superior to another, but to find oneself with the humility of Christ, with the humility of Our Lady, and to enter into the obedience of faith. This way the great space of truth and of freedom in love truly opens up to us.
Finally, let us thank God because he showed us his face in Christ, because he gave us Our Lady, he gave us the saints, he has called us to be one body and one spirit with him.
And let us pray that he may help us to be increasingly within this communion with his will so that we will find freedom, love and joy.
After dining with the community, the Holy Father said the following:
I am told that I am expected to say a few more words. I have already spoken too much perhaps, but I would like to express my gratitude and my joy at being with you.
In the conversation at table just now, I learned something more of the history of the Lateran (Basilica), starting with Constantine, then Sixtus V, down to Benedict XIV, Papa Lambertini.
In this way, I also saw the historical problems and the continuing rebirth of the Church of Rome. And I understand that even in the discontinuity of external events, there is the great continuity of the unity of the Church in all the ages.
Even in the composition of the Seminary (student body), I see an expression of the catholicity of our church. From all the continents, we are one Church and we have the future in common.
Let us hope that vocations may further grow because, as I told the Rector, we do need workers in the vineyard of the Lord.
Thank you to everyone.