"For you were called for freedom"

Excerpt from 'Word of Life' for July, from the Focolare Movement.


“For you were called for freedom”

How then should we live this Word of Life? Paul himself tells us how: “For you were called for freedom… serve one another through love.” He explains why we must serve with love: “For the whole law is fulfilled in one statement, namely, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Gal 5:13-14).We are free – this is the paradox of love – when we begin to serve others out of love, when, going against our selfish inclinations, we forget ourselves and we focus on the needs of others.We are called to the liberty of love: we are free to love! Yes, “in order to have freedom, we need to love.”

“For you were called for freedom”

Cardinal Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan was imprisoned because of his faith and he remained behind bars for thirteen years. During those years, he felt free because he could at least love the prison guards.“When I was put in isolation,” he recounted, “I was watched by five guards: they took turns so that two of them were always with me. Their officers had told them: ‘You will be rotated every two weeks with another group, so that you will not be “contaminated” by this dangerous bishop.’ Later on they changed their minds and said: ‘There will be no more rotations otherwise this bishop will contaminate all the guards.’ “At the beginning the guards hardly ever spoke to me. They only answered ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ It was really a sad situation…. They avoided conversing with me.“One night, this thought came to me: ‘Francis, you are still very rich. You have Christ’s love in your heart; love them as Jesus loved you.’“The next day I began to love them even more, to love Jesus in them, by smiling, offering them a kind word. I began to tell them stories of my travels in other countries…. They then wanted to learn a foreign language: French or English … My guards had become my students!” (Testimony of Hope, Pauline Books and Media, 2000).