Before his death, John Paul II left a message to the youth on the occasion of the 20th World Youth Day. Having read this message, I am prompted to stimulate some thoughts in my fellow youth. My reflections and proposals though particular to my fellow youth are broadly inclusive. John Paul II adopts the image of the Biblical Magi, the three men from the East in search of the newly born king (Mathew 2:1ff). The three men heeded the bright star, trusting that it would lead them to the truth, the newly born King of the universe.
John Paul II concludes that we the youth of today are called to find this truth in the Lord present in the Eucharist. This is distinctly Catholic, but I would like to broaden this quest for the truth beyond the Catholic faith. What is it that we as youth today follow and believe to be leading us to the truth? To start with, what is that truth toward which our lives are oriented?
CONCEPT OF FREEDOM
One of the world’s luxuries today is freedom. It is commonplace today to hear on television or radio news about various occurrences of protests and cries for freedom of expression, press, association etcetera. What strikes me though are the various extremes the concept of freedom has got. It seems undoubtedly evident that the attributes that this notion and concept has acquired stretch beyond elasticity what authentic freedom is. It is in the same pretext of freedom that we have ever swelling numbers of premarital pregnancies, street kids, HIV/AIDS infections and hence, taxing projects like orphanages, settlement for the parentless and abandoned children. An incredible amount of indulgence in pre-marital sex takes place in the same name of the freedom of the modern youth.
We have become so free that we can decide and designate our own fate; life or death. Perhaps this is disguised in ways other than abortion, euthanasia (an act which some countries have enacted as legal and a right). Or even death penalty. I often postulate in my reflections a human society that is genuinely and completely free. Free in the sense that, by essence, we as human beings are destined not merely to perform acts of the human being but human acts. This might sound like utopia or phantom wish.
ACT OF THE HUMAN BEING OR HUMAN ACTS
I love the use of the terms “act of the human being” and “human act” by an ancient Greek Philosopher, Aristotle. Every human act is preceded by an intense and sufficient reflection of the mind as opposed to the act of the human being, whose prime drive is impulsive spontaneity.
Now in as much as charity is a Theo-centric and Christo-centric quality, it should as well be our obligation to speak about obvious snares that keep us on the run with disease and illness. I am particularly concerned here about behaviour that indiscriminately puts humanity to risk without which humanity is faced with no threat of extension. Today, one of the most frequently used phrases on pictorial and written advertisement is “if you cannot abstain use it.” Well, a lot has been said about the various views in the use of the “it” by professional and competent people and about the moral obligations in sexual matters.
Speaking from the above-established Aristotelian viewpoint, true humanity is ordained for “human acts” and not for “acts of human beings.” The former humanises us while the latter dehumanises us and relegates us to instinctive “things”. Furthermore we are meant to be image-bearers of God’s own true manifestation. Unless we prove and cohere to this Divine intention of creation, we remain good practitioners of false freedom. Other than in morally obliging circumstances (which Michael Kelly, S.J. calls as lesser evil, JCTR second quarter 2004), the pro-condom campaign especially as the case at the moment in the country, is morally and humanly devastating. It is hard to conceive why we want to relegate humanity only to sensual, non-cognitive and un-spiritual creatures. After all the opposite is what distinctly marks us from all other beings.
CALLED TO BE RATIONAL AND SPIRITUAL BEINGS
One actor in the film “Dorothy Day” comments that the world is in the chaos it is in because the people who drink do not act and those who act do not drink. If all thought, understood their human vocation and acted, the world would be different. A human being, by essence, has a fundamental obligation to perform human acts. Our sexual attitudes today are not only sinful to God, but a sin to human nature as well.
We are naturally designated to be rational and spiritual beings whose passions are caged and domesticated by the rational and transcendental faculties. Virtue is in our power and is our vocational obligation as rational and transcendental beings. This is the true meaning of freedom. The contrary is inhuman, slavery and sinful. Human beings are free only in so far as they live within the confines of their essence. We are not free not to be human either in contemplation or in act. Our freedom consists just in contemplating and doing that which is human. Anything else is refusal to be fully human and fully free. It is the rejection of the Creator’s love which daily calls us into existence. God desires only that we come to our full stature as men and women, finally fashioned into the divine image and likeness.
I liken the “if you can’t abstain use it “slogan to what William Reiser, a Jesuit priest and author, calls “hiding from God” in the very sense that the Biblical Adam and Eve did. It is failure to come into the Divine light and acknowledge our creaturely dependence on God. It is the worst slavery of our day and time. It is as Reiser puts it “failure to locate the deepest mark of the self (not sexual satisfaction) but the soul, the spirit, that dimension of our being which keeps us authentically human alive”. Human freedom means freedom to be human and to be human means being essentially rational (performing human acts) and acknowledging our dependence on the Creator. God has empowered human beings to be free in the truest sense to assimilate their existence with what nature has given them.
CONCLUSION
When the three men from the East had adored the baby King, they went back on a different route. Similarly, when we have identified the true mark of our existence, we shall implacably take up a new course in our perception, convictions and lifestyle. I invite my fellow youth then, to seriously consider the possible wonders we could do to this world if only we could journey in life with positive and healthy convictions about freedom and influence each other positively, whilst delineating ourselves from mundane deceptions.
Privilege Haang’andu, n.S.J.
Jesuit Novitiate
Lusaka
