Christian re-creation, beatitude and freedom

Christian re-creation, beatitude and freedom The search for happiness Every human being wants to be happy. Everyone wants happiness that is lasting; everyone seeks to be truly content with his/her lot in life. This desire for true happiness is the basis for people’s motivations and actions. It is because they want to achieve true happiness that they set their primary life-goals. In society today, there are many different ideas about what brings true happiness. This is why there is such variety in what people consider to be important primary life-goals. Some seek wealth, for example, believing that true happiness can be found in material possessions and money. Others seek social status, believing that they will grow happier as they win greater popularity and respect. Others again are ambitious, believing that happiness will grow with success in their work, their position or use of their power. One problem shared by all with life-goals such as these is that they are measuring happiness by criteria that are outside themselves, and happiness can only come from within them. Such goals fail to appreciate that the human heart is too large to be satisfied with money, status or ambition. As a result, many who are wealthy tend to want greater wealth, the popular want greater popularity and the ambitious set even higher goals. Not everyone, however, sees such goals as valid primary life-goals. Many instead see as their primary life-goals such things as the well-being of their families, service to others and committed marriage relationships. They may seek money and career advancement as only a means to help them achieve these primary life-goals. One basic difference between those in this group and those seeking greater wealth, status and success is that their primary life-goals are person-oriented. To the extent that they succeed in their goals, they will find other people responding to them, returning love and appreciation. Over time, people's experiences have shown that these things are more satisfying to the human heart. However, though bringing truer happiness than wealth, status and ambition, there is a problem with person-oriented life-goals. People die, so there is a limit to how long they can give love and appreciation. Also, people can change, and relationships can die over time. Of the two groups of people, who are most likely to experience the greater freedom in life? It will be argued that those who are person-oriented in their lives are more likely to experience freedom because there is less chance of them being driven by desires that will lead them to deny the freedom of others. The search for happiness can undermine freedom The human desire for happiness motivates people’s behaviour and affects their freedom. It can even undermine freedom. A young person who thinks that happiness will grow with peer acceptance, for example, can find it increasingly difficult not to conform to group expectations. As a result, she or he may find it hard to avoid going along with the crowd. Their freedom to choose is lessened when what the crowd wants to do is not right — for example, take drugs. The desire for wealth has taken away the freedom of many to respect what belongs to others. They have stolen, committed fraud, dishonoured contracts, cheated and embezzled. Similarly, the desire for status has led many to ‘put down’ others, to lie, to compromise moral principles and to break political promises. Ambition, too, can take away people’s freedom. Instead of living ideals related to respect for others, they can manipulate others for personal ends, exploit people and treat anyone who stands in their way ruthlessly. Even the desire for good relationships can undermine human freedom. It can lead people to violate their conscience rather than risk a relationship, and fear saying ‘no’. Perhaps we can think of media examples of ways that people behave that reveal their primary life-goals. This does not mean that a person is fully aware of their life-goal at the time of the behaviour — for example, a thief may not realise that he or she believes happiness will be found in possessions. True happiness requires a lasting primary goal True happiness can never be found in things that pass — nor can it be found in people. Rather, it can be found only in what is permanent and can never be lost. This means that it can be found only in God. God alone does not pass or die. Also, God alone can fill the needs of the human heart. As the great early Christian thinker, St Augustine, expressed it: Our hearts are made for you, O Lord, and cannot rest until they rest in you. Indeed, God created the needs of the human heart so that people would be drawn through these needs into intimate relationships with their Creator. This is particularly true of the human desire for lasting happiness [Catechism 1718]: This desire is of divine origin: God has placed it in the human heart in order to draw men (and women) to the One who alone can fulfil it… The happiness that comes from intimacy with God, being truly satisfying to the human heart and everlasting, is different from any other. As a result, it is described with a different word — beatitude. If heaven is the happiness that comes from eternal union with God, beatitude is to experience a little of heaven on earth [Catechism 1721 and 1722]: Beatitude makes us ‘partakers of the divine nature’ and of eternal life. Such beatitude surpasses (human) understanding and powers. It comes from an entirely free gift of God: whence it is called supernatural, as is the grace that disposes men (and women) to enter into the divine joy. Because beatitude leads to greater oneness with God, it also leads to greater personal freedom, for it is God’s power that truly frees. As this oneness grows, believers find themselves gradually freed from sin, temptation, guilt, overpowering emotions, attitudes and habits that otherwise will lead them to violate their consciences, their ideals and what they believe to be right. Christians promote beatitude Jesus told his followers to love others. As a result, Christians want all people to experience ‘beatitude’, for to love someone means wanting them to enjoy true happiness. To fulfil the command by Jesus to love, Christians seek to promote awareness of God in their society. They do so especially by their own example of worship. They also do whatever they can to encourage others to learn the Gospel of Jesus — ‘Gospel’ meaning ‘goodness’. Yet they do so, knowing that many today do not believe in God or religion. As a result, they cannot experience ‘beatitude’, for they are not allowing God to give them this gift.