This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.
When we consider aberrations from the Christian life, we think of abuse of freedom, whereby we give our autonomy too much weight, and we turn our freedom to choose good into an arbitrary license to choose any and all options, regardless of their moral character, without consequences.
But in reality, many of the doctrinal errors within Christianity have come from a tendency to take away or cheapen human freedom.
Some branches of evangelical Protestantism, for example, believe that once we accept Christ in our life, we are no longer free to turn away from Him later in life. Also, the universalist heresy, present from the times of the early Church and in some potent forms still today, teaches that we are not free to choose to remain separated from God for eternity–rather, all are forced into heaven.
Truth is, God’s immense respect for the definitive freedom He has created in us inspires awe. Paul affirms its defining character very simply in today’s first reading: “Through it you are also being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you.” We will be saved IF we choose with this mighty freedom to hold fast to the Gospel.
The reason there is a great tendency to cheapen and lessen the reality of our freedom is that it constitutes a great burden. We know our own fickleness and weakness. It can be argued that one of the great reasons for the plague of anxiety that so burdens the human race is our deep awareness that our own happiness depends on the use of our freedom. This, and the awareness that our will to choose the path to happiness is terribly weak, and our intellect for discerning that path, muddled.
Indeed, Catholics in particular are often derided for so-called “Catholic guilt”–ultimately, this burden of anxiety associated with acknowledgement of the full scope of our own freedom’s power.
So if the remedy to this burden is not to invent untruths about our freedom, to hide our head in the sand, what is it? It is there in black and white in today’s Gospel acclamation: “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest, says the Lord.”
And in the Gospel passage itself, in Jesus’ response to the woman who pours perfume on His feet.
When we develop a constant, consistent, and profound relationship with the Lord, where union with Him is the only priority, He Himself clarifies our intellect and strengthens our will through the critical sevenfold gifts of the Holy Spirit. It takes great commitment and work simply to give God time, to give Him our lives, every day. But the payoff is disproportionate. Holy souls live in the profound peace, not of relying on their own holiness or faculties, but of relying on this great Holy Spirit, who will never let them down.
Such souls live in the fullness of their own freedom to choose, exercised daily in their definitive choice for God, but they also live free of the burden of anxiety suffered by those who travel the road of freedom alone.
Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Ask Jesus for courage in the face of the daunting reality of your freedom, the use of which is definitive in determining your eternal destiny. Ask Him for the gifts of the Holy Spirit of wisdom and fortitude. Ask Him trustingly never to let you be parted from Him, and to be the strength of your mind and will in choosing Him forever.
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