We are created by God as free beings We are created by God as free beings and He has given us the capacity to be free and to make choices, but to make a choice means to give up something. As young people we have always believed that to be free means to do what we want, but in reality, it means making sacrifices. As the common saying goes “You cannot have your cake and eat it too.” If you choose to eat it, you give up looking at it and enjoying the aroma of it, if you choose to look at it you give up eating it. When in school for example we have to agree that we cannot successfully pass exams if we have a frantic and dizzy social life. We have to give up one in order to have the other. We choose to do something; but afterwards we can neither choose nor escape the consequences of our choice, this is one of the hard facts about freedom which we have to face. Every time we make a choice, we take risks and we cannot infallibly foresee what the results of our choice will be. We are held accountable for the consequences of our choices and so we have to be prepared to be answerable and take the risks involved.
Adapted from the book ‘Basic facts about freedom’ Paulines publications Africa 1996
Sr Catherine Wanza fsp