The ultimate purpose of our freedom

MARY Magdalene, a big-sinner-turned-saint, teaches us a great lesson about freedom. And that is for us to realize that the ultimate purpose of our freedom is to look for Christ, for God, in everything we do and have in this world. In this life, we are always confronted with a choice—whether we want to be with God and or simply to be by ourselves. We have to make the proper choice. And that’s what our freedom is all about. 

 As the gospel narrates, (Jn 20,11-18) Mary Magdalene, despite the heavy load of her past, went early to the tomb of Christ and when she found it empty, chose to sit there weeping. She was bent in looking for Christ who gave her the greatest liberation from her dark past. And she was richly rewarded. She became one of the first, if not the very first, to see the resurrected Christ. 

 Many people, of course, have their own ideas of freedom. But if we really want to know what it is, where it can be found, how it should be exercised, etc., we have nothing to do other than to look at God who is the source and end of freedom. He is the one who gives the law proper to our use of freedom. 

 And what can we see in God with respect to freedom? The direct answer is that God did everything for us completely free, without any special reason, without any pressure. We can say that he did all those wonderful things for us because he just wants to. In our local lingo, he did them because “trip ko lang!” 

 What he did and continues to do to us can only be characterized as being completely free. It was pure grace, unadulterated gratuitousness. That in the end is what freedom is all about. 

 He created us freely. There was no necessity on his part to create us. But he did it just the same. He endowed us with the best things, such that we became his image and likeness, adopted children of his. There was no need for him to do that to us. But again, he did it just the same. 

 And even if we spoiled his original design for us by falling into sin, by going against his will which can only be good for us, he did not leave us and, instead, promised to redeem us. He would have lost nothing nor gained anything if he would have just allowed us to get lost. But, no, he preferred to save us. 

 There was no necessity for him to send his son who became man to redeem us. But he did it—completely freely. The son, Christ, did not have to offer his life on the cross to save us. There are many other ways to do that. But he chose it freely because it was the best way to save us, respecting our human nature that needs also to be responsible for our salvation. 

 He is willing to assume all our sins without committing sin. He offers us boundless mercy for the taking. He did all these completely freely, completely gratuitously. He actually gains nothing, but we gain everything if we follow him in living that kind of freedom. 

 We need to process these considerations of freedom slowly so as to reflect them little by little in our lives. It will take time and a lot of effort to imbibe this kind of freedom which can only be the genuine one. Outside of this, our idea of freedom can never be right. It can have some aspects of freedom, but not the whole, true one. 

 Again, the ultimate purpose of our freedom is to be with God! Let’s not waste it on other things which are meant only to bring us to God in the end.

Unafraid to proclaim the Good News

AFTER the resurrection of Christ, the guards of the tomb went to the chief priests to report what had happened. But they were told, obviously to deny again the divinity of Christ, that his body was stolen and to spread that lie to explain why Christ’s body could not be found anymore. 

 It is important that we proclaim with conviction the resurrection of Christ, because even if there are many elements that can show Christ’s divinity and his claim to be our savior, his resurrection constitutes the most convincing proof of this truth about him. 

 As the Catechism of the Catholic Church affirms, “The Resurrection of Jesus is the crowning truth of our faith in Christ, a faith believed and lived as the central truth by the first Christian community; handed on as fundamental by Tradition; established by the documents of the New Testament; and preached as an essential part of the Paschal mystery along with the cross.” (638) 

 And it adds: “The mystery of Christ's resurrection is a real event, with manifestations that were historically verified, as the New Testament bears witness.” (639) 

 We should have no doubt about Christ’s resurrection so that we can have it as a driving force to our efforts to spread the Good News about everything that Christ has taught us about ourselves and about everything else. 

 Especially nowadays when a good part of the world is distancing itself from God, from faith and religion, due to its apparent growth of power due to the advances in the sciences and technologies, there is a great need to bring Christ at the center of all our human affairs. 

 Thus, we need to constantly and forcefully proclaim the gospel where the truth about Christ and ourselves can be found. After all, proclaiming the gospel is one central duty of every follower of Christ. In fact, our Lord told his disciples just before ascending into heaven: “Go into the whole world, and preach the gospel to every creature.” (Mk 16,15) 

 Though addressed directly to his disciples, we have to understand that these words are meant also, in varying degrees and ways, to all of us, members of Christ’s mystical body, his Church. 

 We just have to feel the unfading urgency of this command, and overcome whatever prejudice or obstacle that may still keep us from undertaking this important work. 

 We should echo St. Paul’s sentiments: “Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel.” (1 Cor 9,16) Like St. Paul, we need to relish the full weight with which Christ commissioned him to fulfill this task. 

 We just have to understand also that proclaiming the gospel is not just an intellectual affair. It involves our whole being, and it requires nothing less than our conversion, and not just our attaining knowledge and familiarization of Christ’s words. 

 In other words, proclaiming the gospel requires our living it, that is, living the very life of Christ who said: “For God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting.” (Jn 3,16) 

 Proclaiming the gospel requires assimilating it, identifying ourselves with it, making it the flesh of our flesh. It should not just be a possession, a property that we can have and then dispose. It has to be our very own life.

Christ’s resurrection our supreme joy

THAT’S right! With the resurrection of Christ, we have our greatest joy since we are now assured of our own redemption as long as we also do our part of the deal. Christ has given us everything to recover us from our self-inflicted alienation from God. The only thing that can stand in the way is when we obstinately refuse to believe this truth of our faith. 

 With his resurrection, Christ has finally conquered death itself and with it all the malice of sin and evil. It’s the victory that recovers our original dignity as image and likeness of God and nothing less than God’s children in Christ, the dignity we lost because of sin. 

 This ultimate victory even enhances that dignity, since it involves God becoming like us so that we can be like him! It’s this very sublime exchange and sharing that comprises the supreme good that can happen to us. Yes, we are meant to be one with God, sharing his very life and nature, since we are his image and likeness, children of his. 

 Some people have considered it a Pyrrhic victory since it involves quite a tremendous cost. It’s like saying that the resurrection of Christ has given us only a zero-sum triumph, since what we gain with it is almost the same as what we lose. 

 This is, of course, a very poor understanding of this truth of faith. While it’s true that this culmination of the redemptive work of Christ on us entailed nothing less than his life, it’s also true that that death has been converted into a gateway to our salvation with his resurrection. What matters is what happens in the end, with an effect that will be for always. 

 If we believe this truth and live it ourselves, identifying everything in our life with the life and the passion, death and resurrection of Christ, then we too can partake of this ultimate victory. 

 We should not forget that it will involve nothing less than the offering of our life. Before that, it obviously will entail a lot of suffering—the cross, in other words—which Christ already warned us about when he said that if we want to follow him, then we should deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow him. 

 It would be nice if we can quit wasting time by fussing about this truth, and simply proceed to live it, acquiring the relevant attitude and skills to put it into practice. Yes, with this truth about our assured ultimate victory in Christ, we ought to have the confidence and serenity in going about the affairs of our life. Plus, a driving sense of responsibility that should push us to do things for others without counting the cost. 

 We just have to deepen our belief that with Christ’s resurrection, sin and death have been definitively conquered, and a new life in God is given to us. We are now a new creation, with the power of Christ to conquer sin and death and everything else that stands in the way of our becoming true children of God. 

 And so, we have every reason to think that we can live forever in Christ over whom death no longer has dominion. In spite of whatever, we have every reason to be happy and confident, as long as we are faithful to Christ.