True freedom means that we see nothing either with the eyes of the world or with the eyes of our nature, but in the light of Christ, and with the eyes of the Faith. He who is truly free is not, then, simply unaware of the effect his behavior may produce on others, but essentially independent of it and superior to the plane of considerations to which it belongs. His conduct will be decided by Christ and His holy word, and not determined, for instance, by an inordinate zeal which, spurning the virtue of discretion, gives vent indiscriminately to one’s natural enthusiasm rather than translating into action a true and unreserved surrender to Christ.

A spectator view of ourselves limits our freedom

Besides the first form of human respect, as discussed above, there is a second one, less reprehensible but still an expression of inner unfreedom. We find it in people who so much attune themselves mentally to their environment that they grow accustomed to see their own behavior with the eyes of others, thus becoming unable to behave in company with any degree of spontaneity.

The image of their own person which they attribute to the spectator warps their attention to the given thematic object. In the end they come to observe themselves from the outside constantly and habitually, in a fashion apt to prevent them from taking up a genuine and independent position in any matter at all. Thus, for instance, they would feel it to be a profanation of their prayer if it were said in the proximity of others, whom it might impress as fanatical, in bad taste, or excessively pious.

Not that pride impels them to attach an undue importance to their social image; it is merely that they are to such a degree swayed by the (real or imaginary) impression they produce on others that their genuine experiences and spontaneous impulses are crushed beneath the weight of that all-comprehensive dependence.

The perspective in which they suppose others to see things destroys their contact with the objects that solicit their response. Hence, their behavior becomes the function of whatever, at the moment, happens to be their environment. In the company of people whom they know or suspect to be irreligious, for instance, they will be ashamed to cross themselves at table or to say their Breviary in the train.

Love may sometimes call us to moderate the display of our convictions

Of course, it is not a good thing either to lack all faculty of empathy—of sensing and being in tune with other people’s emotions—and, confining oneself entirely to the thematic object of one’s attitude, to be wholly unconcerned with the effect it is bound to produce. As has been hinted above, both natural ingenuousness and a primary emphasis on being in harmony with other people’s states of mind are inadequate.

True freedom means, not either of these, but the habit of seeing everything in conspectu Dei, and hence giving heed to the state of mind prevailing in one’s environment.