Personal Freedom

Second Sunday of Advent A-1

Entrance Antiphon Cf. Is 30:19, 30 O people of Sion, behold, the Lord will come to save the nations, and the Lord will make the glory of his voice heard in the joy of your heart.

Collect Almighty and merciful God, may no earthly undertaking hinder those who set out in haste to meet your Son, but may our learning of heavenly wisdom gain us admittance to his company. Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Scripture today: Isaiah 11:1-10; Psalm 72:1-2, 7-8, 12-13, 17; Romans 15:4-9; Matthew 3:1-12

In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the desert of Judea, saying: Do penance: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. For this was he who was spoken of by Isaiah the prophet, saying: A voice of one crying in the desert, Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths. And the same John wore a garment of camels' hair and a leathern girdle about his loins. His food was locusts and wild honey. Then there went out to him Jerusalem and all Judea, and all the country about Jordan. They were baptized by him in the Jordan, confessing their sins. And seeing many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them: brood of vipers, who has warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruit worthy of penance. And think not within yourselves, We have Abraham for our father. For I tell you that God is able of these stones to raise up children to Abraham. For now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not yield good fruit, shall be cut down, and cast into the fire. I indeed baptize you in the water for penance, but he that shall come after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear. He will baptize you in the Holy Ghost and fire. His fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly cleanse his floor and gather his wheat into the barn; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. (Matthew 3:1-12)

Personal Freedom It has always been intriguing to me to follow the vagaries of philosophical thought as it has unfolded during the course of history. The history of philosophy provides plenty of material for the study of how far from common sense the thinking of some talented thinkers can stray. Descartes attempted to prove by demonstration that he existed and had recourse to the mere fact that he thought. This, he decided, proved that he existed: I think, therefore I am. Apart from the questionable philosophical step of beginning not with external reality (as does, say, Aquinas) but with internal impressions, it ignores the common sense intuition of one’s own existence being involved with the existence of other things. One has an immediate and certain perception of external reality and of oneself as involved with this reality. That is a matter of common sense, a perception shared commonly among all. Of course we all admit that this or that person can be deluded in his perception of reality, but an exception does not make a rule. Another philosophical area of doubt for some relates to the matter of personal conscience. I have, some have claimed, a perfect right to follow my conscience. But one does not. One has a limited right to this, but it must be balanced by other rights and duties. Common sense restricts this right in all sorts of ways. It does not allow the terrorist conscientiously to threaten others. So too, a considerable current of thought in the past focussed on the question of freedom. Some philosophers denied that man is free. But this too flies in the face of common sense and what society assumes. There used to be a saying that 40,000 Frenchmen can’t be wrong. Cardinal Newman, for instance, stood firmly for the authority of the voice of mankind. The institutions and laws of society presume that man is free and responsible for his actions — though all allow that circumstances can mitigate his responsibility.

Let this last observation introduce a little reflection on freedom, for it relates to our Gospel today. Morality and religion depend on our being free. That we are free is evident, even though the extent to which we are free at any one point of time may not be at all evident. But we are free and we can become more free. Freedom hinges on our choice of the good. Our choice of what is good is the test of our freedom and it is the means to increase our freedom. The less we choose the good and the more often we choose what is bad, the less we shall be free. The more we shall be enslaved to the bad. These are facts of human experience and they are also part of divine revelation. God calls us to make choices, and the choice we must make is to love him by keeping his commandments. What is also revealed is that we are born into a fallen condition profoundly influenced by what the Church calls original sin, and this sinful fallen condition seriously limits our freedom to choose the good. We are instinctively swayed in the direction of sin and self rather than in the direction of truth and the good and God. To overcome this we need the grace of God. We are, nevertheless free — free to fight against this sinful and selfish tendency that we find ourselves with, provided we receive the grace of God. With the aid of God’s grace, we are free to seek the holiness that is life in Christ and friendship with him. It means, in the first instance, that we are free to turn away from sin and accept the Good News of Christ. Aided by the grace of God we are free to seek conversion, and this is very much what our Gospel today (Matthew 3:1‑12) reminds us of. John the Baptist’s message was, Repent! Make this choice! Turn from your sins! Many came to him acknowledging their sins, with the exception of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. We, too, are called to repent not just once but regularly and even daily all through life. One of the most fundamental ways in which true freedom is exercised is in repentance from sin. We are all found to be enmeshed in sinful tendencies as an inherited condition, and this condition has to be renounced, resisted and replaced by love — love for God in the first instance, and love for one’s neighbour secondly. It will depend on repentance, and this repentance involves the exercise and growth of freedom, a freedom led and sustained by the grace of God.

Let us hear the words and preaching of John the Baptist as directed to ourselves. Our Lord would take up his baton after he was arrested and continue to preach repentance. It is the sign of a truly free person that he is able by grace to accept that he is a sinner and then to renounce those sinful ways. The grace of God is available to the disciple of Christ through baptism and the Sacraments. With this grace the repentant person can become a saint, and personal sanctity is the crown and best fruit of freedom.

(E.J.Tyler)

Further reading: The Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.1739-1742 (Human freedom in salvation)

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