Talk #4 Will Commitment and Fidelity Bring Happiness and Freedom?
PURPOSE:
To show that our personal sense of freedom increases as we begin to make a commitment to belong in our relationship. To emphasize that bringing fidelity to a relationship is the way to true joy and a condition for belonging to another.
OUTLINE:
a) Mention what led you to make the commitment to belong in your vocation, both your immediate family and to others in general.
b) Give examples of how your commitments make you free.
c) Mention and describe the fidelity certain people have expressed to you.
d) Talk about the greatest danger to your fidelity that you are aware of and the concrete steps you are or could be taking to overcome it.
Suggestions:
This talk is given by the married couple.
TalkShop #4 Will Commitment and Fidelity Bring Happiness and Freedom?
To whom are you committed to belong?
What have you thought is necessary for freedom?
In what relationship have you experienced a freedom that comes from belonging?
What is necessary for you to commit yourself to belong?
In what practical ways could you bring fidelity to your parents or family members?
How does it affect you when you see how others in your family have been faithful to you?
What most often makes it difficult for you to express fidelity?
How would you benefit from being faithful to others?
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Will Commitment and Fidelity Bring Happiness and Freedom?
Read slowly and thoughtfully.
The more committed we are, the more free we can be. One follows the other. To be free in a relationship with another person means that we are tied to him or her through a personal commitment. This commitment is the foundation of the relationship. In our commitment, we freely pledge to the other that we are responsible to him or her and capable of responding in a deep and personal way. What is made explicit by our commitment is the free expression of who we truly are to one another. For many people, achieving happiness and pledging fidelity seem to be contradictory. Fidelity is often thought of as an ironclad obligation which restricts personal freedom and places unnecessary burdens on it. Happiness is cast in terms of whether or not each person gets what he or she wants out of life or by how much entertainment each can find. Understanding fidelity and happiness in this manner is a narrow outlook.
Stop and think for a few moments about the times we have already experienced happiness with others. When we were touched by another and experienced a bond of closeness with that person, we were filled with a sense of joy.
Even as we recall such simple and beautiful moments, a smile crosses our face, a warm feeling floods our heart, a cherished memory lingers on within us. What we recall about these moments is not the words said or gifts given, but rather how near to us and present to us the other person was. We experienced ourselves as being affirmed and valued by the other. It was the other person favoring us with the gift of himself or herself because our own goodness was irresistible to that person. It is this self-giving of others to us that brings us our greatest happiness. When they are relating to us in this way, they are being most faithful to us and to themselves.
Undoubtedly, we all know what will make others happy. None of us needs to think for a long time to decide what will bring joy to our mother or father, sisters or brothers, or anyone else to whom we belong. To follow through with this knowledge would be to exercise fidelity in our relationship with them. To desire and to be concerned with the quality of joy in other’s lives is to be the faithful man or woman. The path to our own happiness lies in being this kind of person. As we give joy to others and occupy ourselves with the quality of life in those to whom we belong, we create within us a greater capacity to receive joy from others. As we become less self preoccupied and give to others, we create within us an openness and an ability to receive joy from others. Such fidelity is not a rule. We can’t follow a list of do’s and don’ts in being faithful. Being faithful is not a thing we perform for another. It’s more than seeking to please the other. It’s drawing the other person into the heart and making him or her foremost in our lives.
“I promise to”, “I would like to”, “I hope to”, can quickly come from our lips. They are not the same as “I commit myself to you.” It is within our power to make a commitment in our relationships instead of remaining in the stage of hopes and wishes. At this very moment, we can make a commitment to belong to our family, our special friends, the people of our church community. To go beyond hopes and wishes to a real commitment is a challenge, It takes a firm willingness to know and to be known by the other person in good times as well as bad. In the marriage commitment, as well as in our other commitments, it means being constantly understanding of the other person we belong to. Whether we agree with him or her or not, whether we feel or don’t feel like it, we readily respond to his or her needs. This kind of commitment goes beyond feelings to decisions. Once we decide to be so committed to another, a freedom to submit to the other is created. We grow in the capacity to put aside our own petty opinions or reactions and to give ourselves over to the other. Instead of being stubborn on certain issues, we realize the person to whom we are committed is much more valuable. For the sake of the other person, we feel free to negotiate on certain issues as a part of growing closer together.
Without freely committing ourselves to others in relationships, we are imprisoning ourselves in loneliness and alienation. Our lives are earmarked by coldness, indifference, and distance between ourselves and those who love us. Our parents, friends, the people of our church community become the victims of our lack of communication and of the games we hide behind. Only by becoming truly committed to our present relationships can we gain the freedom to be our true selves.
The extent to which we can give of ourselves is endless. There is no limit to the joy we can bring to those to whom we belong. There is much that is good about the relationships we already possess with others. Do we take pleasure in these relationships, or do we merely get along in them? A very real part of our vocation in life now is to fill those relationships with a more abundant and lively joy.
As best you can, explain your reaction.
Will Commitment and Fidelity Bring Happiness and Freedom?
Some Things to Face
1. Complete the following:
A commitment to someone means….
A fear I sometimes have about being committed to someone is…
To think of myself making a total and permanent commitment for life to someone else makes me….
The last time I was truly happy over someone else’s good fortune or joy was…..
2. Of the relationships to which you are presently committed, explain which has been the easiest to maintain and which has been the most difficult to keep.
3. Who do you look to as a model of faithfulness/fidelity?
4. What are characteristics common in these people?
Solo Exercise
Wives and Husbands
Wives should be submissive to their husbands as if to the Lord because the husband is head of his wife just as Christ is head of his body the church, as well as its savior. As the church submits to Christ so wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church. He gave himself up for her to make her holy, purifying her in the bath of water by the power of the word, to present to himself a glorious church, holy and immaculate, without stain or wrinkle or anything of that sort. Husbands should love their wives as they do their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. Observe that no one ever hates his own flesh; no, he nourishes and takes care of it as Christ cares for the church - for we are members of his body.
"For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall cling to his wife, and the two shall be made into one”
This is a great foreshadowing; I mean that it refers to Christ and the Church. In any case, each one should love his wife as he loves himself the wife for her part showing respect for her husband (Ephesians 5:22-33).
1.Name the most recent experience you've had of freely submitting yourself to someone. Describe what it was like for you.
2.Recall a time in your life when you experienced unity with great closeness to care for another, or others, that was similar to your care for yourself. Describe what you remember of this experience.
3.Explain in your own words what "the two will become one" means to you.