Tag: <span>Freedom</span>

April 8, 2021March 23, 2021

Restrained Power

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

Today’s readings are full of wonder.

In the first reading, Peter and John have just healed a crippled man. The scene reminds us of what might happen in our own time if a known cripple suddenly were healed in the sight of all. Rightly, everyone is amazed and wants to understand more. Peter explains how he and John did not heal of their own initiative and power, but by God’s action, and then proceeds to call them all to repentance and belief in the risen Christ.

In today’s gospel, we see the risen Christ in a mysterious and beautiful mode–he eats some fish in front of his disciples, after having appeared without explanation in their midst. He is both part of the physical world, and also utterly unfettered by its limitations.

If we put these two readings together and contemplate with wonder the mysteries of divine power that unfold, we may well proclaim today’s psalm: ” O Lord, our God, how wonderful your name in all the earth!”

There are signs here of an incredible, unlimited power on the part of the risen Christ in these readings. And yet, He uses that power in a subtle way. He does not overwhelm, but just provides a taste and an invitation–much as He does today, in our own hearts.

He is not looking to enforce; He is looking to open a door, and entice human freedom to walk through it, while changing our natural surroundings as little as possible. He even leaves the natural effects of original sin, that is, our fallen nature and the brokenness of the natural world, in place in respect for that freedom.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Tell Jesus that you believe in Him and trust in Him, the risen Lord, with all your heart, even though He does not choose to use His power yet for the full restoration of the world. Ask Him to bring His power completely to bear in you, however, to sanctify you and empower you to assist in His work of salvation.

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December 16, 2020December 10, 2020

Rain

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

“Let justice descend, O heavens, like dew from above.” “Let the clouds rain down the Just One, and the earth bring forth a Savior.”

God gave us a choice when He created us; we could choose Him, or choose against Him. Choosing Him wasn’t that hard and it certainly wasn’t irrational. But we chose against Him. The deed was done. There was no turning back.

There was no turning back, because God is faithful to Himself: He created us with free choice; He respected that choice; so His hands were tied to undo what we had done.

Nor did we deserve to have our choice rolled back. Our choice was entirely our own–and we had chosen wrong.

Here we are in Advent; we can imagine ourselves in that first Advent. The world is a cold, dark, hopeless place.

And we plead with God to rain down the Just One, and for the earth to bring forth a Savior.

And so, in the most creative solution to a problem ever conceived in human history, God uses the permission of a sinless young maiden to allow for His re-intervention in human history, by which–at the highest imaginable price–He will not roll back that free decision of our which He respects, but rather purchase for every human the ability to choose differently, to choose the higher, more difficult path of eternal happiness. Through no merit of ours, He intervenes.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Tell Jesus how much you need an extra infusion of Him in your life this Christmas. Tell Him about the darkness you feel in your world this Advent, and ask Him to send down the grace of His joy, strength, virtue, goodness, and wisdom like a rain shower in your life.

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November 20, 2020November 3, 2020

Sweet and Sour

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

How sweet was Jesus’ mission, and yet how sour.

We know from Scripture that in His humanity He experienced a deep, scraping, visceral frustration when those He was trying to save obstinately refused to understand His mission. It is the same sort of willful, obstinate rejection, cloaked as misunderstanding and ignorance, that He receives from many in the world today.

In the modern world, just as in today’s Gospel passage, people instrumentalize sacred things on the altar of greed. They even convince themselves that they are doing the Lord’s work when their only real objective is to build wealth and status.

In the first reading, the scroll–which in other passages we see is the scroll with seven seals on it, that only the Lamb can open–represents God’s providential plan for humanity. It is sweet on the tongue, but sour to the stomach.

God’s plan is the absolute ultimate drama. On the one hand, it involves every sumptuous, overflowing gift of happiness that man in his created nature is fashioned to receive. But for the complete fulfillment of this happiness, man is free, and able to choose to turn away from these ultimate goods to gain lesser goods–like the moneychangers in the temple in today’s gospel.

The combination of man’s destiny of happiness and his freedom is sweet, oh so sweet, so sweet indeed that it is the stuff that his Creator dreams of, even in His own infinite state of completeness.

But man very often uses his freedom to choose to turn away from the heights to which God has called him, for the more comfortable lows of sin. And this is sour. So sour that the invulnerable God wound up shedding blood to reopen the door to salvation from this fate. But man still needs to walk through, and many do not.

Still–and here we can only use our imagination, which falls far short, as St. Paul says (cf. 1 Cor. 2:9)–still, the exalted fulfillment to which those who choose God is so glorious, that God did not shy away from creating human freedom, despite the losses that would be incurred.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Ask Jesus, today and every day, for the gift never to be separated from Him; and He will answer this request, and see your heavenly destiny secured. But also contemplate all those who obstinately use their freedom to turn away from God, or more precisely, from the exalted destiny for which He created them, with all the detachment that this destiny involves. Like a general with his King, plan with Jesus what prayers and offerings you will make to Him to enable Him to push through the doors of their obstinacy and attract them irresistibly with His grace to the higher choice.

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October 29, 2020October 10, 2020

The Armor of God

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

Divine Providence, and God’s role as sovereign of human history, is a curious thing in its interplay with human freedom.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus laments Jerusalem’s rejection of Him, and the fact that it will become an abandoned place as a consequence. His lamentation is full of love–He laments, not an inability to rule over Jerusalem, but to “gather its children.”

But at the same time, He tells those worried for His safety in the outlying country not to be concerned, because the place of His death is destined to be the Holy City.

The very thing He is lamenting, He has accepted as the destiny preordained by God’s plan.

God’s plan takes into account foreseen human decisions for evil and so channels them for His purposes of salvation, that it almost appears that He Himself is their cause.

It is easier to see this in Jesus’ life than our own, both because of His own foreknowledge, and because of the insight of hindsight. But through faith, we know that the same dynamic is happening for us as long as we give our lives to Him. Nor is it a delicate dynamic, subject to shattering at any moment that we may display weakness; the dynamic of God channeling evil for good is backed by His strength, not ours. As St. Paul says, “We know that all things work for good for those who love God.” (Rm. 8:28)

Speaking of St. Paul, all we need to do to tap into this dynamic, as He says in the first reading, is put on the armor of God: Righteousness, faith, the Spirit. If we stay close to Him in prayer and the sacraments, our life will in fact become a breathless love story of salvation, union with God, and happiness.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Think of some things in your life that are troubling you. Ask Jesus how those fit into His plan for you, as His death in Jerusalem fit into the great plan of salvation. For those pieces that you don’t understand, ask Him to help you trust in His knowledge of where they fit and His guidance of you accordingly.

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October 26, 2020October 1, 2020

Idolatry and Freedom

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

Sometimes we talk metaphorically about how today’s golden calves are money and sensuality. So, whereas the Israelites worshiped a golden idol at Sinai, we worship our own base passions of greed, laziness, lust, etc.

This metaphor may feel recent, but it originates with St. Paul, right in today’s first reading. Those who give themselves over to these things are committing, directly or indirectly, a sin against the First Commandment, by not loving God above all things, and putting something else ahead of Him.

Because we are attached to sin, we may feel as though the prohibition against sin is a constraint, a sort of shackles, which prevents us from doing what we want. We are like a horse tethered to a post for so long that he no longer knows what it means not to be tethered, and enjoys chewing on the leather with which he is tied. When the master comes to free him from the tether, he balks and fights, afraid to lose his chew toy, not realizing at all how much greater a joy freedom brings than the taste of his old tether.

Freedom from sin is very much like freedom from a debilitating physical condition–like the horse’s tethered state, or like the crippled woman’s inability to stand up straight in today’s Gospel passage. Hence Jesus often heals and forgives sins at the same moment, freeing the whole person, in their physical and spiritual reality.

If the Christian life feels onerous to us, this is an illusion; it means simply that we haven’t tasted it in its fullness. It has been said that falling in love with God is the opposite process, in a sense, to falling in love romantically. With romantic love, we feel strong attraction, and on the basis of that attraction come to a place of commitment. With love of God, He asks us to commit first in faith, fully, and then over the course of our lives reveals the glory of that in which we have invested.

Our best tastes of freedom in God are yet to come.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Tell Jesus of the attachments you feel to created realities, and even habits of sin. Tell Him of your weakness and the difficulty you encounter in becoming free to choose Him consistently. Ask Him to send you the Holy Spirit to supplement with the strength and clarity that you don’t have. Will a father give his son a scorpion when he asks for an egg? Much less, then, will your Father in Heaven refuse the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him (cf. Lk. 11:12-13).

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October 19, 2020October 19, 2020

Fundamental Transformation

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

St. Paul provides an eloquent name for the effect of original sin within us in the first reading when he says that we were “by nature children of wrath.” Original sin twisted our nature itself, the nature we were born into.

But he also provides a window into one of the most exciting things about Christianity: That in saving us, Jesus does not simply ignore that spoiling of our nature, but actually restores it and recreates it for good: “For we are his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for good works that God has prepared in advance.”

The reality of Paul’s words may not be self-evident as we suffer, frustrated, the temptations and inclinations of our fallen nature, which seem no less potent than they are for the unbaptized.

The reality is that, because of His respect for human freedom, Jesus does not transform and recreate our nature from one moment to the next, when He enters our souls with His grace at baptism. Rather, He undertakes this work of re-creation in the ambit in which we dwell–the ambit of time–in a gradual manner that respects our limited capacities.

Hence the importance of collaborating with Him joyfully, actively, daily, consistently, through a committed life of prayer and the sacraments, and through a following of His ascetic teachings in the Gospel–including today’s teaching on avoiding the temptation to obsess over our material security and welfare to the point that it is a disproportionate priority in our lives.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Ask Jesus to help you trust that He is the protagonist of your transformation, and that He has a plan for it that He will execute as long as you give your heart to Him in a real and practical way each day.

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October 17, 2020September 25, 2020

Freedom!

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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October 15, 2020September 24, 2020

Destiny’s Child

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

“All things work for good for those who love God,” says St. Paul in a different epistle (cf. Rm. 8:28). For those in union with Christ, suffering is an opportunity to draw nearer to Him, become more like Him, and win further application of the infinite saving grace He merited on the cross. For those in union with Christ, triumphs and joys evoke gratitude, praise, and further trust in God. All circumstances, good and evil, increase love.

And Paul powerfully outlines the final result in today’s first reading. Adoption to the divinity through Christ. Every spiritual blessing in the heavens. Forgiveness of transgressions. The riches of grace.

And for this glorious destiny, per St. Paul, God chose us before the foundation of the world. A glorious plan, a glorious destiny.

What a contrast with Jesus’ message to the scribes and Pharisees in today’s gospel. He tells them, “The wisdom of God said, ‘I will send to them prophets and Apostles; some of them they will kill and persecute’ in order that this generation might be charged with the blood of all the prophets shed since the foundation of the world.”

A very different destiny indeed.

It may seem unfair that, whereas for those of us who give ourselves to God with all our hearts, everything has been destined to work together for good, the destiny of Jesus’ audience here was to get heaped on them blame for the blood of all the prophets, even those who came before them. All things working, we may say, for not-so-good.

It is true that all of our destinies were pre-planned by God. And yet, God causes no evil. None. God is simply so incredibly powerful, so unfathomably sovereign, that He can create a rich race composed of completely and utterly free beings, fully capable of choosing between good and evil; foresee the choices of each free will; and–mark this–weave all of those free responses into a grand mosaic of history by far more impressive, more coherent, more pregnant with perfect meaning than any work of art ever conceived by the imagination of man.

As Lord of history, God is so powerful that He transforms not only neutral circumstances but even acts of freely chosen evil into key masterstrokes composing the rich and thoroughly beautiful work of art that is the glory of those who have chosen to love Him.

So, what are you worried about, again? 🙂

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: In your dialogue with Jesus, contemplate His ability as King of the Universe to weave all circumstances together for your good–to center, in a sense, all of history itself on your individual welfare, and yet to do this for each of His friends. Tell Him you adore Him and trust Him, and place all your eggs in His basket. Tell Him that you are setting your hand to His plow, never to look back.

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