5th Week of Lent, Wednesday, April 6th
Daniel 3:14-20, 24-25, 28 / John 8:31-42
Jesus talks about his teaching; "Keep my word and you will know the truth. "
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Do our doubts about the teaching of Jesus arise from our failure to live
out his teaching? "If you wish to be
convinced of eternal truths, do not augment your arguments, but weed out your
passions." Blaise Pascal
***
On July 10, 1970 Communist China released Bishop
James Walsh from prison,
reportedly because of advanced age and ill health. The bishop had been arrested
in 1958 and held incommunicado for almost two years before he was sentenced to
twenty years in prison on charges of spying for the United States and the
Vatican. When his brother was allowed to visit him in 1960, the bishop told
him, "While no one likes to be confined, I am not unhappy here and I leave
the future entirely in the hands of God." He had found that "four
walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage." During those long years
in a small cell of a prison on the outskirts of Shanghai, Bishop Walsh did not
enjoy freedom in the ordinary sense, but he did learn the meaning of the words
of Jesus, "If you live according to my teaching, you are truly my
disciples; then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free."
Jesus taught that cells and prisons do not
destroy freedom; sin does that. Sin makes us slaves. It chains the human spirit
and restricts us from living in such a way as to achieve the real happiness for
which we all yearn. Freedom is the liberty not to do whatever we want, but to
do whatever we must in order to fulfill our spiritual destiny. Living a life of
sin is like choosing to confine oneself within a rundown one room hovel and
pretending that is pleasure, when one could live in a magnificent mansion
forever.
If we live according to the teaching of Jesus
as his disciples, his truth will set us free—free from sin with the liberty to
pursue the true purpose of life.
***
Persons who trust in God fight enslavement to
sin. In the face of abuse of authority, persecution or coercion of any kind,
even of tradition or of the law, they retain their inner freedom. When they
hear and keep God’s Word, they make a decision for freedom. The liberating word
of Christ sets us free and makes us sons and daughters. God’s children are born
to be free. The three young men at the king’s court were willing to lay down
their lives for their faith. Like the faith of Abraham, our faith in Jesus should
be deep and unconditional.
***
Encountering Christ:
1.
Formation
Moment: Christ was
speaking with those Jews who believed he was the Messiah. He was teaching them
that his word is truth and has the power to set them free from sin. “You will
know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Christ reaches through time
and space to us, his modern disciples, with the same message. He invites us to
read the word, meditate on it, memorize it, internalize it. “Then, you will be
free.” What an outstanding promise he makes to us! Christ has taken the
initiative to share with us the true meaning of life and to reconcile us with
God the Father.
2.
Blocked
by Pride: As Christ was
inviting them into a closer encounter with himself, the Jews were getting
annoyed. “We are descendants of Abraham and have never been enslaved,” they
said. They had obviously forgotten certain parts of their history—Egypt and
Babylon, for example. They were stuck in their pride and wedded to their own
perspective. When Christ enters into our life, he completely changes the way we
view the world and the way we view ourselves. He invites us to see the world
from his perspective, and understand what behaviors will truly bring about
freedom.
3.
Freedom?: The Jews looked at freedom as freedom
from outside forces, like occupation by the Romans. Christ was offering them
internal freedom, the freedom from sin. It is freedom from sin that leads us to
our full potential. “Freedom is the power, rooted in reason and will, to act or
not to act, to do this or that, and so to perform deliberate actions on one's
own responsibility. By free will one shapes one's own life. Human freedom is a
force for growth and maturity in truth and goodness; it attains its perfection
when directed toward God, our beatitude” (CCC 1731).
***
Prayer
Lord our God, you call us to be free people. Help us to give you always a response of freedom. Set free by Christ’s liberating word and death, may we never again shackle ourselves with self-made chains, of selfish sin and false attachments. We ask you this through Christ our Lord. Amen