By Father Rich Tomkosky
This past Friday we as a nation celebrated the 4th of July or Independence Day: the beginning of the celebrations in honor of the 250 years we have been a free country. Considering that, it is a good time to reflect upon the true meaning of freedom.
Freedom is a gift from God given to us human beings to enable us to act or not act in life. We are not simply creatures of instinct, but we have the ability to choose.
Freedom is the power rooted in reason and will by which we shape our life. It is meant to be a force for growth and maturity, in truth and goodness. Unfortunately, we live in a world today that often sees freedom as license. The difference is: freedom as God intended it is to be used in the service of truth, love and goodness; the world thinks freedom means to be able to do what you want when you want to do it, whether it is objectively good or bad, true or false, or whether it affects other people badly.
This is a philosophy of life that is basically hedonistic, which means wanting to get as much pleasure from life as possible without any reference to ultimate truth, goodness, beauty, or love which can only be found in God. We see this played out in our public life over the last 50 years as repeatedly our government and courts have affirmed the right to do any variety of selfish, disordered and evil things, be the right to abortion, to contraception, to pornography, to homosexual acts and marriage, euthanasia, and taking God out of our schools and public affairs. It is not a recipe for ultimate happiness.
When we lose sight of God, we lose sight of the purpose of human life and the dignity of the human person at all stages and in all forms. We don’t think of the community or common good, or how it affects the youngest members of our society, but simply rather how I can have my “rights” fulfilled without any reference to any responsibility. It is a very selfish understanding of freedom.
What are we as followers of Christ called to do in the midst of this selfish understanding of freedom in so many sectors of our culture?
First, we need to realize that doing what you want when you want to do it doesn’t lead to real joy or maturity, but in fact to spiritual slavery, misery, and addictions of various sorts. It’s only by inviting the Lord Jesus to mold us into His image that we come to see what true freedom really is: being a reflection of God in self-giving love/goodness.
Saint Paul reflects on this when he says, “May I never boast except in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ through which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.” He is talking about the selfish use of freedom vs. turning your life over to Jesus.
Let us ask the Holy Spirit to help us to take on the mind of Jesus, to embrace the demanding yet liberating teachings of Jesus on how we are to live and what we are to believe in: objective truth, goodness, love and beauty.
Whether the modern world realizes it or not there is an objective blueprint given to us by God through the Catholic Church that leads to ultimate joy. You and I don’t have to re-invent the moral and religious wheel: to figure it all out ourselves is not a sign of great intelligence, but instead of pride and shortsightedness. What a burden and how depressing it is if you or I with all of our weaknesses, blind spots, and imperfections must figure everything out! Instead, God in His kindness entices us to live in trust of Him and in love to enter into a living relationship with the Blessed Trinity which alone will set us free.
Contrary to what popular culture teaches, the human heart in fact desires more than selfish pleasure, material objects, power, vanity, lust, and control of others. This is why I became a priest. I thought as a teenager there has to be more to life than these things I mentioned above; instead, I recognized the desire in my heart for ultimate truth, goodness, beauty and love which I discovered can only be found in God and the gift of the Catholic faith.
The more we grow in our relationship with God, the more we grow in authentic human freedom. We come to see that we don’t simply want to live, but to have a reason for living!
As Saint Paul says, we are all called to bear the wounds of Christ in our bodies, the wounds of self-giving love, which is our “ticket” to Heaven. The saints show us truly how to use our freedom properly, for service — not for selfishness — by growing daily in dying to self, living a life of practical charity expressed in works of goodness, with the foundation of a living relationship with God in daily prayer and acts of penance in reparation for our sins and those of the whole world. God bless you.
Father Rich Tomkosky is the Pastor of Saint Thomas the Apostle Parish in Bedford and the Pastor of Seven Dolors of the Blessed Virgin Mary Parish in Beans Cove.
