There is no true freedom except in the service of what is good and just

I love celebrating America’s Independence Day each year on July 4 – spending time with friends and family, eating lots of good food, going to our local parade, and watching the fireworks from the best vantage point ever.  I am so thankful to live in a country that is as free as the United States of America.  I see in the news the challenges faced by people in many countries around the world, and I don’t know if I would be able to persevere in the face of those difficulties.  I don’t know if I would have had the courage to sail off across an ocean to find a place where I could practice my religion free from persecution – to have to flee everything I knew to try to find some measure of personal freedom.

We Americans have a very strong notion of what freedom is – it’s what the our founding fathers fought for and ensured through our Constitution, it’s what thousands of great men and women since have died to protect, it’s what most Americans hold very dear – but this freedom is only a shadow of what true freedom is.

What is freedom, really?  True freedom is so much more than our typical notions of freedom, and perhaps much more difficult to obtain.  True freedom is saying “yes” to God – not just when it is convenient or easy, but always.

“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)

Our God loves us enough to give us free choice, to let us choose.  We face many choices between the good of God and evil.  We choose, no one makes us do good and no one makes us sin.  Our choices are not accidents, not mistakes, not dumb luck, but deliberate actions.  We have the power to act or not to act, just as the Catechism tells us.  

How do we choose to act in our lives on a daily basis?  How free are we?  How free do we really want to be?

“The more one does what is good, the freer one becomes. There is no true freedom except in the service of what is good and just. The choice to disobey and do evil is an abuse of freedom and leads to ‘the slavery of sin.’”  (CCC 1733)

Think about the times in your life when your actions have been sinful, when they have gone away from God?  How free did you feel at that moment?  Now think about the times when your actions have been truly good and in accordance with God’s will?  I think that if we are honest with ourselves, the answer is clear – we know deep down inside that we are the most free, are most at peace with ourselves when we choose what is good and just.  

Jesus told those who believed in him, “If you remain in my word, you will truly be my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”  (John 8:31-32).  Truth is real, truth became man, suffered, died, and rose again, so that we might have life.  Truth created the universe, created man, and gave us the freedom to choose for ourselves.

True freedom is not just doing whatever we want to make ourselves feel good at the moment.  That is just a shallow figment of the true freedom that awaits us.  Our human freedom allows us the ability to become who God created us to be – to be sons and daughters of God the Father – and to therefore be able to one day share in eternal union with Him.  This can only happen if we deliberately exercise our freedom to choose what is good and just.  Our morality as Christians and God’s laws are in place for our happiness, to guide us and show us what we need to do, how we need to act, in order to reach that true freedom we all seek.

One of the most cited quotes comes from St. Augustine, a man who knew all too well where choosing to sin, choosing a life of earthly pleasure would lead, as he experienced it for many years.  He said that “Our hearts are restless, oh Lord, until they rest in you.”  If we search within our own heart, we know that this is true.  Only the choice of God, and everything that that choice entails will truly make us happy and set us free.

Today, the day after the celebration of our nation’s independence, let us truly ask our God for the grace necessary to overcome our sinful choices, and to only choose what is good and just, to always say “yes” to Him, so that we may be truly free.

Almighty and merciful God,

In your goodness take away from us all that is harmful,

So that, made ready both in mind and body,

We may freely accomplish your will.

(CCC 1742)