Freedom is found through service to others, teaches Holy Father

Vatican City, Feb 23, 2009 / 07:09 pm (CNA).- During a visit to the Major Roman Seminary to celebrate the feast of its patroness, Our Lady of Trust, Pope Benedict XVI discussed the concept of freedom explaining that it is only achieved in service to others.

The Pope’s visit, which took place Friday, began at a “lectio divina” for the seminarians on the Letter of St. Paul to the Galatians.  The Holy Father commented on the words of the Apostle of the Gentiles in his Letter to the Galatians - "you were called to freedom." 

Benedict XVI asked: "What is freedom? How can we be free? St. Paul helps us to understand this complex question of freedom" when he says "do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another."

He continued by exposing the differences in the true definition of freedom and the world’s view of the concept: "The absolute self who depends on nothing and no-one seems truly and definitively to possess freedom. I am free if I depend on no- one, if I can do anything I want. Yet this absolute exaltation of self is 'flesh,' in other words degradation of man. It is not the conquest of freedom. Libertinism is not freedom, rather it is the failure of freedom."

"Paradoxically, freedom is achieved through service," he explained. (Full story at CNA)