inside america

In Search of the Cure
Recapping and developing the past issues’ exploration of the phenomenon of freedom in truth–often polluted by the prevalent “cultural virus”–brings us to understand the key point in this drama: “life in communion.”

by lorenzo albacete

With this column, I wish to finish our reflection on the experience of freedom. In particular, we chose to concentrate our study on the experience of faith in today’s world. This is what we have established so far:
First of all, we saw that studying the experience of faith is to be preferred to a study of faith and culture as a purely intellectual topic. Modernity should also be seen as an experience; in particular, an experience of reality. We spoke about this experience as a cultural virus. The cultural virus accomplishes its work by altering the meaning of words. Walker Percy describes the phenomenon as an “evacuation” of the symbols, or their de-valuing (as in the case of a currency). “Words have been deprived of their meaning,” he writes in The Thanatos Syndrome.
In the case of the experience of the effects of the cultural virus in matters of faith, the experience of faith becomes that of a faith denied of a concrete content, thus degenerating into a despairing moralism, or into its opposite, a total confidence in the human intelligence to overcome all problems. Ironically, the two may co-exist at one time. Actually, what matters is their common result—namely, to alter the experience of our humanity as alienated, threatened by the rest of the universe. In this case, freedom consists in being as independent as possible by whatever means. Freedom and power coincide and are directly proportional.
Surely this cannot be the experience of freedom of the followers of Jesus Christ! Faith is the recognition of the Presence of Christ now, through the effects of that presence in the circumstances that increase the desire to be with Him eternally, in a communion of heart embracing us all as One Body, one Spirit in Him. It is only an experience of this communion in Him that sets us free. Indeed, communion is liberation. Let us explore this a bit more.
We are told by Jesus that only the truth will set us free. The question at this point splits into three: Who is Jesus? What is truth? How do the two come together?
Obviously, these are very deep questions bringing together theology, philosophy, and the experiences of saints recognized by the Church as “mystics “(however badly used that word is). We are only looking for points that will shed light (another crucial term today, easily infected by the cultural virus).
As to the question about truth, Jesus Himself answers it by claiming Himself to be the Truth. That is why we insist that faith is the recognition of the Presence of Jesus. According to Saint Augustine, human destiny depends on our relations with two men, Adam and Jesus. But as we remember that Jesus is the Truth, we realize that Truth itself is also the experience of a relationship with Him inseparable from the experience of freedom. Our question then becomes: How can we have that relationship with Jesus that makes it possible for us to know the truth and be free?
The answer for us Catholics is simple: by living His life in the communion that is His Body, the Church. This is the experience of freedom that inoculates us against the cultural virus.