on conscience …

“This desire to possess what is good, that it be mine, is common to all men. But to reach it means loving, adhering, that is, involving our freedom, and sometimes, as we well know, we want to spare ourselves this. It is an ever lurking temptation. Luisa Muraro writes, ‘We always have the wish to give the responsibility for our lives to someone else; we easily seek someone we can tell, “Please take care of my life.”’ And rest assured that there will always be someone so ‘charitable’ that he will be ready to do it …

If somebody wants to look for someone else to spare him his freedom (call him spiritual director, or boss, or friend – it’s all the same), he has to clearly understand that he will not reach happiness in this way, that nothing will ever be his, because I can reach my fulfillment only through my freedom; otherwise, it will never be my fulfillment. And if I don’t understand this (and, unfortunately, I often see that many of us don’t), I will always try to unload the drama of my freedom onto someone else.” (Muraro – God’s Empty Seat)(Communion & Liberation 2010 Spiritual Exercises p. 35)

Thomas Olmsted “What shapes history and that stands the test of time … was what men and women cherish and honor, what they believe and worship, what gives their life meaning and what they hold to in the sanctuary of their conscience.”

Mary Ann Glendon

George Weigel Commencement Address at Benedictine College