What does it mean to be free?

My friends, this weekend we gather together with family and friends for barbecues and fireworks and all the other things that make the fourth of July a fun filled summer holiday. It is a time when we celebrate what we hold most dear as Americans, namely, freedom.

It is important to understand that in many ways the Christian understanding of freedom is different from the way the secular world defines it. Some people in our day and age view freedom as the right to define one's own existence. You decide how you are going to live. The danger with this idea is that it opens the door to relativism. The truth is what you decide it to be. A woman has a right to choose whether she will keep her child or abort it. Marriage is between a man and a women...or if you so choose...between two men or two women. All of this under the false banner of freedom.

The Christian understanding of freedom is different. St. Paul tells us in Galatians 5 that "For freedom Christ has set you free". Freedom is not,therefore, the right to define one's own existence but to choose Christ who indeed frees us from all that enslaves us in this world....sin and death. Christ is the truth and the truth will set us free. As Christians we are free to say yes to God and to his teachings that he hands down through His Church. In doing so we become truly what God created us to be...fully human...fully alive. We become free from the fallen passions that have enslaved us since the fall of humanity and we become a new creation in Christ.

Peace,
Fr. Mark