What is Freedom? Homily for Thursday, February 15, 2024

Readings for Today. Listen to our other podcasts.

In the first reading, we are given a choice between life and death. In the gospel we are told to deny ourselves. Just what does it mean to choose?

What is freedom?

Oftentimes, when we think of the word “freedom,” we might define it this way, or at least some people would. Freedom is when I can do whatever I want. The problem is that that’s not freedom. That’s license.

There was a Dominican friar who really developed very clearly this idea of differentiating between license and what we would really say is the moral freedom to which we are called. His name was Servais Pinckaers. He was a French Dominican. And he distinguished this notion of license from true freedom.

And his distinction was simply this. When you look at license, license is simply a choice of two alternatives. I do this or that. But it doesn’t give us license any kind of direction about whether the choice we make is in fact the moral choice. If freedom is limited to simply I can do whatever I want, then the person who was responsible for the shooting yesterday in Kansas City was free.

Pinckaers talks about freedom in a different way, which when I give some examples I think we all would agree with. It’s a freedom of becoming. Sometimes true freedom requires that we limit our license for the sake of a greater purpose. Now all of you who have children of your own know this basic truth.

You sacrificed what you wanted to do, like maybe remaining asleep in the middle of the night when your children were sick, in order to become a better father or a better mother. We do this in friendships. We do this in when the relationships change and all of a sudden children become parents to their parents, in making sure they have a place to live.

In this true freedom, what we need to be clear about is the goal of becoming. In other words, who is it that we are called to be? And the only one who has that perfect answer is God. God is the one who calls us forth to become ourselves.

That’s what Moses is getting at in the first reading. This comes in a way after we’ve talked about the great commandments and other commandments as well. And when you look at the commandments, they limit license. You can’t kill, you can’t steal, you can’t commit adultery. There are all kinds of things that you are not to do in order to become a person of the covenant, a person with this relationship with God, a person who is made in the image and likeness of God.

And that’s what Moses is getting at when he says, “Choose life.” I’m setting before you true freedom and license. Life and death. Why does license lead to death if that is the only thing we focus on? Well, consider the image of a little boy or girl in a candy shop. And they eat all the candy they want to eat. They have all the license to do whatever they want. Left to their own devices, they probably become sick because they don’t know when to stop.

The gospel is also about this choosing of life and death. Jesus says that if we really want to be followers of his, we have to focus on who we are called to become. And we are called to become those who follow Jesus by surrendering our will to the will of the Father. That’s what Jesus did throughout his life.

We see it most dramatically in the Garden of Gethsemane when he says, “Father, not my will, but your will be done.” But we see it time and again that what might be the logical human choice is something that Jesus passes by. As we enter into the beginning of this season of Lent, let us ask the Lord to help us to surrender more fully to his loving will so that we can become the persons that God has made us to be.

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