Freedom and The Little Act

We now call our corrected notion of powerpointing as the original little way of St. Therese as we’ve discussed. If I am worthy, you may call me a son of St. Therese. This little act is further helped by the Blessed Virgin Mary’s question due to addict’s incapacity or servitude. The question “What good can you easily do here and now?” seems to be bereft of freedom of choice. But a careful examination of the question reveals that the one who will answer it is free to answer whatever good comes out from his mind, his talent or tendency, and his choices among goods. Does it mean we are forced to do what is good? If that is what is bothering you, then you are far from the Kingdom of God. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. It is not the focus of this topic to help you desire what is good (to love). The focus of this topic is that we are free to choose from among the multitude good acts we can do.

It’s not just in the careful examination of the question that we see freedom from the one who will answer it. When the question has been answered, it will be acted out. The acting out itself is the little act that sets one free. Little freedom is acquired against the formidable addictions or vices we’ve set ourselves to overcome. St. Therese told that when we always stumble on the ladder to heaven, one day God may have mercy on us and carry the little crying child up the ladder Himself.

Pardon me as I need to give example to my repentant sexual addict readers. In all modesty, someone is delusioning for example that he be married to his first cousin, which is forbidden by the Canon Law’s fourth degree of consanguinity. Let us call him Gilbert. And Gilbert’s delusion is a worst kind of sexual addiction. Gilbert heard that a priest from his parish dispensed and wedded secretly two souls who are first cousins since they already have children. But the counsel and common sense tells us that there are too many good souls out there aside from Gilbert’s first cousin. That is the more perfect will of God, aside from what is good, what is pleasing in God’s eyes. An addict can’t understand that, more so do that. And so the Blessed Virgin Mary’s question helps sinners to master himself at every level until he can already even accept the more perfect will of God, the hard foods of adult. “What good can you easily do here and now?” can be answered with “I will marry my first cousin,” to “I will identify what I like with my cousin and look for someone with those characteristics,” up till “I want whatever God wants for my marriage,” which is the hardest. “The more one does what is good, the freer one becomes," according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church. One day Gilbert will be able to say to himself after all the practicing of all the virtues the Blessed Virgin Mary is pointing him to practice that he can already embrace whatever God wants for his marriage. For now Gilbert needs to practice answering the Blessed Virgin Mary’s question and doing it even in the little moments of his life so that he may know afterwards what is pleasing and what is more perfect in God’s eyes.

In the Letter to the Bishops on Some Aspects of Christian Meditation of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, it is told that "...the emptiness which God requires is that of the renunciation of personal selfishness, not necessarily that of the renunciation of those created things which he has given us and among which he has placed us." I want to emphasize that it is wrong to think that God doesn't want a repentant sexual addict to marry for the maintenance of chastity (better to marry than to burn with passion 1 Cor. 7:9). But "...while he raises us up, God is free to 'empty' us of all that holds us back in this world..."

A repentant sexual addict not yet fully healed should be frightened to think that God doesn't want him to marry for chastity purpose. He need not fear though that every now and then God can lift him up and detach him from his attachment to sex in all its form. It doesn't mean though that God doesn't want one to marry. St. Augustine had lived with women and was converted before he renounced that failed marriage, and had been given by God even the capacity to devote himself to chaste celibate loving. If you still sin against chastity in whatever form, then you are still a sexual addict needing healing though repentant. The fact that you're still sinning is a fact that you're still repeatedly subscribing to the forbidden pleasures of sex outside marriage, and points to an addiction or vice. A fact that after years of struggle to master yourself, you have not been. It then points to a more suitable counsel which is to marry in love even you have that valid motive of maintaining your chastity. Telling yourself then that God doesn't want you to marry, is a very circumventing invention of your cycle to addiction not to subscribe to married sex. It's a rebellion indeed against God who created marriage for specific persons. A failed or unchecked healing of sexual addiction inside a formation house of future celibates can mean continuous toleration of abuse and scandal in the church. And so I pray that youth in such troubles might be enlightened unto their paths by proper authorities.

If in your heart you're still choosing marriage as your vocation, then it is God's will, and should no longer be questioned that further inhibits one's desire to marry. For those who are still struggling against a seeming contradiction between God's will and one's freedom of choice, I highly recommend reading Peter Kreeft's article. Remember the Blessed Virgin Mary fully respecting our freedom by asking us "What good can you easily do here and now?" and not tell us directly this is the exact and only will of God that you should be doing. Peter Kreeft clarified in the article how such situation of God directly telling individual his specific will is very limited in the bible and in the lives of the saints, illogical since all our moves should do God's specific will, nay it's the exeption to the general rule. A rule according to St. John Chrysostom that we shouldn't be hearing God's voice, suffice it that we have our conscience and reason.

St. Therese, teach us your little way!
St. Augustine, pray for our healing!
Mother Mary, refuge of sinners, have mercy on us!