The Paradox of True Freedom: A Homily on Laetare Sunday and the Traditional Latin Mass
Offertory
"Out of the depths I have cried to thee, O Lord: Lord, hear my voice..."
Summary of Headings
- Introduction to True Freedom
- The Choice Between Worldly Freedom and Divine Servitude
- The Path of Sacrifice and Spiritual Life
- The Illusion of Worldly Freedom
- Choosing Heaven Over Earthly Desires
- The Role of Christ's Example
- The Joy in Sacrificial Living
- Conclusion and Call to Sacrifice
Introduction to True Freedom
I'm not quite sure who said it, though it sounds like Chesterton, who said that, If you wish to truly be free, then prepare yourself, then enslave yourselves to God. But if you wish to be a slave, then free yourselves in the world. This is the paradox that St. Paul gives us in the Epistle today, and this is the mystery of Laetare Sunday.
The Choice Between Worldly Freedom and Divine Servitude
The concept of the fact that we are given a choice. We can be children of this world, or we can be children of heaven. If we are children of heaven, then we have to subject ourselves to the law, and we have to subject ourselves and enslave ourselves to the will of God, accepting him and only him. If we are going to choose to be the children of this world, then we can pretend like we have the freedom that this world offers, which is a lie. Because every day, more and more, it will enslave us, and ensnare us more to its ways.
The Path of Sacrifice and Spiritual Life
So we have that choice open before us each and every day, whether we choose to be free or slaves. And the slavery, we have to understand, is a voluntary one where we choose to serve God. But he will not force us to serve him. His conditions are clear. The commandments, his will. These things are very clear and open to us. All we have to do is accept them, and bind ourselves to them. And that means cutting ourselves off from all the other slaveries around us.
The Illusion of Worldly Freedom
And that is what we must give ourselves to, that is the labor of the free children, the children of the freed woman. It is to sacrifice ourselves and to dedicate ourselves to the service of the Lord each and every day. To die to ourselves. To live in God. Essentially, that is the sum total of what the spiritual life is. What the moral life is. To be able to give up ourselves. To be able to receive everything from God. It is the paradox of our spiritual life.
Choosing Heaven Over Earthly Desires
The world offers us freedom. As a matter of fact, it makes something of a God of freedom. In the great novel about the anti-Christ, The Lord of the World, by Robert Hugh Benson, the first mark, shall we say, that this is the anti-Christ, is that he sets up a cult to liberty. Nothing new. This is what the French Revolution did as well. When they destroyed the churches, they ransacked them, and they put up, they created a cult to liberty. Because that is now the God of this world.
The Role of Christ's Example
This supposed freedom, to be able to choose for ourselves, not have to answer to any higher authority or any higher power, not to be dictated to by God or by the church or by a government or anyone else. Just freedom. To do what we think is right for us. To become masters of our own fate. But that is not freedom. That is slavery to our passions, to our desires, to the spirit of the world, to all things that corrupt and destroy. Satan would enslave us with promises of freedom. Whereas Christ would free us through the drudgery of slavery.
The Joy in Sacrificial Living
Voluntary slavery. But he is not going to force us, he is not going to oblige us or coerce us. We have to make that choice ourselves. We have to strap into the chains ourselves. Christ is not going to force us. We have received this grace. We have received the opening of the doors of heaven through our baptism and through the sacraments. And we have become illuminated through the faith. We know better. But this is where we have to make this choice.
Conclusion and Call to Sacrifice
What is it we are going to choose? Heaven? The new Jerusalem? The perfect Jerusalem? Or this earth? Where we can build our own private little paradise which will never satisfy us or make us happy, but only enslave us. That is our choice. Will we give ourselves everything we want and therefore lose ourselves ultimately? Or will we sacrifice each and every day the things that we want so that we will be able to have everything that we could ever possibly want for eternally in heaven?
In conclusion, the homily challenges us to examine our choices and understand the true meaning of freedom as taught by St. Paul. As we continue our Lenten journey, let us embrace the sacrifices with joy and strive to live as children of the freed woman, not of the bond woman. By choosing the path of voluntary servitude to God, we find true liberty and prepare ourselves for the eternal joys of heaven.