Oblate Program at Belmont Abbey, NC

Tag: free choice

We grow into something beautiful or monstrous

“God never violates our free will. It is up to us whether we want to receive God’s grace or not. It is up to us whether we will co-operate with it or waste it” (Faustina Diary, 1107). Today many try to deny that we are free, that we have a will that can be developed… Read More ›

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Self-centeredness

By abusing free choice, man diverted his love from the changeless good, God, and, blinded by his own self-centeredness, he directed his love to what was inferior. Thus withdrawing from the true good and deviating toward what of itself was not good, where he anticipated gain he found loss, and by perversely loving himself he… Read More ›

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St. Bernard on Free Choice

Free choice is something clearly divine which shines forth in the soul like a jewel set in gold. From it the soul derives its power of judgement, and its option of choosing between good and evil, between life and death, in fact between light and darkness, and any other concepts which are perceived by the… Read More ›

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Free Choice: A God Given Right

Free choice is something clearly divine which shines forth in the soul like a jewel set in gold. From it the soul derives its power of judgment, and its option of choosing between good and evil, between life and death, in fact between light and darkness, and any other concepts which are perceived by the… Read More ›

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The ultimate consequences of our choices

If we resist the advances of God’s love in this life, there is no solid reason to expect that things will be different in the next. The fear that this possibility evokes is due less to some fearsome quality in God than to the dread eventuality that our power of free choice will be seduced… Read More ›

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Lighting the Lamp and Sweeping the House

The image would have lain stained and deformed, had not the woman of the Gospel lit her lamp — had not Wisdom appeared in the flesh, in other words — swept the house — of the vices — searched carefully for her lost coin — her image — which, its original luster gone, coated over… Read More ›

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