Dulles, JPII, and the Law of the Gift

A flashback inspired by Cardinal Dolan at CUA: Avery Cardinal Dulles on truth, freedom, and the law of the Gift:

We become most truly human in the measure in which we go out of ourselves and give ourselves for the sake of others. This “law of the gift,” as the Pope calls it, is inscribed deep in the dynamic structure of the person as fashioned in the image of the divine. He confirms this insight by quoting from Vatican II: “The human being, who is the only creature on earth that God willed for itself, cannot attain its full identity except through a disinterested gift of self” (GS 24). The citizen serves the common good out of a free commitment or devotion. Those who love God serve him freely, and if they refuse that service they undermine the freedom that love has given them. Those who obey the commandments out of fear are not fully free, but they fall into even deeper slavery if they disobey God in order to gratify their own impulses. The truly free person is one who does what is good out of love for goodness itself.