By Charles Muchiri
Liturgical Year B, Cycle II
Thursday of the Third week of Lent
(March 15, 2012)
Readings for Mass
First Reading: Jeremiah 7:23-28
Responsorial Psalm: Psalms 95:1-2, 6-7, 8-9
Gospel: Luke 11: 14-23
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| Free Will |
Once we receive the word of God,
once the statutes, the decrees, the commandments of the Lord are evangelized to
us; we have two options: Either to choose to comply or to harden our hearts,
and continue living as if the Word of God was never there in the first place!
That’s the most interesting thing
about God. He wants His people to follow His statutes, yet He doesn’t impose it
on anyone.
He has given us Free Will.
The Roman Catholic Church teaches us
that “God created man a rational being,
conferring on him the dignity of a person who can initiate and control his own
actions. God willed that man should be 'left in the hand of his own counsel,'
so that he might of his own accord seek his Creator and freely attain his full
and blessed perfection by cleaving to him,” (CCC 1730)
Now,
this could as well be the greatest gift that God gave the human being; yet, on
the flip-side, it could be the worst tool of self-destruction to freely be at
the hand of human beings.
Freedom
simply means, the power, entrenched in both reason plus 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)
Back
to the day’s readings, the people of Israel had the privilege of being taught about
the decrees and the word of God through the prophets. Subsequently, they had a
choice between walking along the ways that were taught to them, and walking in
the evil ways.
But
as God, through the Prophet Jeremiah puts it; they chose to “walk
in the hardness of their evil hearts.”
The
Gospel of the day presents to us a very interesting story; of Christ driving
out a mute demon out of a certain mute man.
Christ
sets this man free, from a demon that had cramped his speech. And essentially,
that was Christ’s mission on earth; to free us from the bondages that cramp us,
to offer to us, the beautiful gift of freedom.
Galatians
5: 1 sums up this gift quite superbly; “It is for
freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let
yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”
And
so it is, that where there is freedom; there must be some yoke that has been
dismantled; a jail whose doors have been broken down; a redemption that has
been acquired, courtesy of the death and resurrection of Christ, our Lord!
/Follow
this writer on Twitter: @muchirimuchoki/
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