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| Bishop Speaks | ||||
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| July 5, 2007 Edition | ||||
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Fourth of July:
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Dear Friends,
A very Happy Independence Day to all of you! What a great opportunity we have this week, to celebrate our liberty and our God-given human freedom. Still, this celebration of our freedom shouldn't be limited to the fourth day of July, and it absolutely shouldn't be limited to a mere civil holiday.
From the very foundation of our country, the words of Thomas Jefferson's immortal declaration spoke to the transcendence of freedom, as a truth of the natural law, saying, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."
This past weekend's readings of the Thirteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time couldn't fit more perfectly to represent what this truly transcendent human freedom demands of all people, but especially for us as Christians.
Too many in our culture would have us believe that the idea "freedom" indicates the right to do whatever we want or like and that neither the state, nor the Church, can impose itself to keep us from what we desire. Or, at the very least, that freedom indicates that I am "free" to choose to do whatever I like, as long as it does not infringe on what you want in your freedom. However, in the light of Jesus Christ freedom is understood differently indeed.
Freedom to love God, serve others
Last Sunday's second reading clearly informs us that through His death and resurrection Christ did in fact free us. However, St. Paul reminds us that this freedom has a price. Our freedom, won by Christ, demands that we love Him and that we love our neighbor as ourselves and not live as slaves of the flesh any longer. We are therefore free to choose what is good and by choosing evil we enslave ourselves once again to sin, and stray on our path toward holiness and God Himself.
Ultimately, every human person has the same vocation, the same universal calling by God to holiness and to perfect union with Him. Individually, we are each called to answer this calling, in the way chosen for us by God, through our free-will. But, by our free-will we make choices which shape our lives through our deliberate actions. And according to our faith, human freedom is understood as a force for growth and maturation in truth and goodness; and it attains its perfection when directed toward God.
This is the freedom that we enjoy in our great country: The freedom to choose to love our God and to serve one another, for the love of Him. Likewise, we as citizens of this great country, not only can, but must bring our faith into the public square and engage the culture of secularism and relativism.
And ultimately we must battle the culture of death in which we live, with the truth of freedom. We are all called to freely choose to follow Christ, to leave all impediments behind us and to go forward on our path toward Him, proclaiming the Kingdom of God. He wants us on this path with him. He desires the fullness of our happiness and holiness, but he gives us the freedom to choose.
Freedom: to do what we ought
In an address on human liberty and freedom to the people of the United States 12 years ago, Pope John Paul the Great quoted, and asked anew, the question posed by President Abraham Lincoln as to whether "a nation 'conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal' could 'long endure.'
"President Lincoln's question is no less a question for the present generation of Americans," the Holy Father continued. "Democracy cannot be sustained without a shared commitment to certain moral truths about the human person and human community. The basic question before a democratic society is: 'how ought we to live together?'
"In seeking an answer to this question, can society exclude moral truth and moral reasoning? Can the Biblical wisdom which played such a formative part in the very founding of your country be excluded from that debate? Would not doing so mean that America's founding documents no longer have any defining content, but are only the formal dressing of changing opinion? Would not doing so mean that tens of millions of Americans could no longer offer the contribution of their deepest convictions to the formation of public policy?
"Surely it is important for America that the moral truths which make freedom possible should be passed on to each new generation. Every generation of Americans needs to know that freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought."
As we reflect on and continue to celebrate the freedoms we enjoy in this great country, let us prayerfully remember that true freedom and all authentic human rights have their source in God, and were won for us by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. We pray that Christ will strengthen us all in our vocations to holiness, and in the ways of love of and service to neighbor, to which our human freedom directs us.
As always, we pray for the intercession of Our Blessed Mother for the intentions of our great country and our great state, that the truth of her Son, Jesus Christ, will be better reflected in the culture in which we live. May God bless you all.
Praised be Jesus Christ!
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