[2/9] Novena of Grace: "Liberty"

L

iberty: A Freedom Ordered to God

Liberty, from the Latin libertas meaning “freedom,” or more specifically "interior freedom"—freedom from disordered attachments that enables a person to respond fully, generously, and joyfully to God’s will. The Spanish (la) libertad appears 7 times in the Spiritual Exercises (Autograph). It is translated as "freedom," "free will," "free choice," or "liberty."

This free will is not simply the ability to choose among various options; rather, as St Thomas Aquinas teaches, it is the capacity to choose the good, guided by reason. True freedom is thus not arbitrary choice, but a reasoned and loving alignment with what is good and true.

We are most free when our desires are ordered toward what is true and good. Yet our attachments can easily narrow and alienate that freedom. When we become fixed on particular outcomes, we may no longer be open to the path God desires for us. Ignatian spirituality therefore invites us to cultivate an inner freedom that loosens our grip on our own preferences. St Ignatius calls this disposition "holy indifference."

This makes liberty the first precious gift mentioned in the Suscipe, St Ignatius’s prayer of radical surrender. Yet this liberty/interior freedom is easily obscured—by both external pressures and internal passions (afecciones desordenadas, SE 1). When our desires are misaligned with, detached from, contrary to or override reason, our moral clarity falters, and we lose the capacity to freely choose the good. For St Ignatius there are three types of thoughts aka movements of the spirits. He considers the first type of thought—a thought process that is strictly one's own—as arising from interior freedom. The other two types come from without, one from the good spirit and the other from the evil one (SE 32).

The story of Adam and Eve offers a vivid illustration. Tempted to claim for themselves autonomy or control over the knowledge of good and evil, they chose to define good on their own terms. In doing so, they chose independence and autonomy over obedience, placing their will above God’s. The result was not liberation but alienation or isolated freedom—a tragic distortion of what freedom is meant to be.

Apart from humans, liberty is also given to the angels. St Ignatius writes that the fallen angels who "not wanting to better themselves by using their freedom to reverence and obey their Creator and Lord fell into pride, were changed from grace to malice, and were hurled from heaven into hell" (SE 50).

If pride is the first among the capital sins, then surrendering the gift of liberty to God—as St Ignatius does in the Suscipe—is among the first steps toward intimacy with God and the first to be offered back to the Divine. In fact, St Ignatius considers free will as pivotal to a prudent discernment of graces (Cf SE 369). Only by offering our freedom back to its Giver, can we be truly free with a freedom ordered to God.

Interior freedom, therefore, is not a call to self-sufficiency or autonomy, but a call to loving obedience to God’s will as the highest good. For St Ignatius, no personal desire, ambition or achievement—no matter how noble—could rival the joy of being wholly aligned with God’s desires. He would gladly relinquish even his deepest aspirations to remain at the center of God’s loving will.

This is why Ignatian spirituality places so much premium on the virtue of detachment. Detachment clears the way for interior freedom—a freedom not clouded by inordinate attachments, impulsive emotions, or unexamined passions. Passions themselves are not bad; but when disordered, they obscure reason and hinder our capacity to choose the good. In such cases, we are not free but subtly enslaved by our own clinging.

St Paul echoes this in Galatians 5:1: “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” True Ignatian liberty is not a liberty of self-assertion, but of self-surrender—a freedom lived through, with, and in Christ. Fr JM Manzano SJ

Grace to Beg For: "Lord, grant me the grace to surrender my freedom—the liberty of my choices, my illusions of control, my clinging to knowing—in order to receive the deeper freedom of trusting You."

This song tells the story of someone who has looked at life, love, and clouds—from both sides—and still ends up saying with humility: “I really don’t know... at all.”

At first glance, that may sound like confusion. But deeper still, it sounds like conversion—like the disillusionment that comes before spiritual maturity. The moment when freedom is no longer defined by the ability to choose endlessly, but by the freedom to surrender and walk in trust.

Meditation: "Lord, I really don’t know clouds, or love, or life—not fully. But I trust that You do. Take my liberty—especially my need to always understand—and give me instead the peace that surpasses understanding.”

Suscipe and Anima Christi