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LIFE IN CHRIST

By the working of the Word of Christ, we slowly bear fruit in the Church to the glory of God.

IN BRIEF

1725 The Beatitudes take up and fulfil God’s promisesfrom Abraham on by ordering them to the Kingdom of heaven. They respond to the desire for happiness that God has placed in the human heart.


1726 The Beatitudes teach us the final end to which God calls us: the Kingdom, the vision of God, participation in the divine nature, eternal life, filiation, rest in God.

1727 The beatitude of eternal ljfe is agratuitousg~ft of God. It is supernatural, as is the grace that leads us there.

1728 The Beatitudes confront us with decisive choices concerning earthly goods; they pur~fy our hearts in order to teach us to love God above all things.

1729 The beatitude of heaven sets the standards for discernment in the use of earthly goods in keeping with the law of God.


Article 3

MAN’S FREEDOM

1730 God created man a rational being, conferring on him the dignity of a person who can initiate and control his own actions. ‘God willed that man should be “left in the hand of his own

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counsel”, so that he might of his own accord seek his Creator and

freely attain his full and blessed perfection by cleaving to him.~26 Man is rational and therefore like God; he is created with free will and is master over his acts.27

I.

Freedom and Responsibility

1731 Freedom is the power, rooted in reason and will, to act or not to act, to do this or that, and so to perform deliberate actions on one’s own responsibility. By free will one shapes one’s own life.

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Human freedom is a force for growth and maturity in truth and

goodness; it attains its perfection when directed toward God, our beatitude.