Freedom
Filed under Caught in the Act on December 18, 2008.
by Lester C. Yee
The silence must have been great as the Angel waited for the response of an overwhelmed young virgin in a sleepy town. All creation must have held its breath as Mary pondered on the implications of saying yes. But with God’s grace, Mary said “Yes!” But is Mary totally free to say yes? This begs the question on what freedom really is.
On one hand, freedom is accepting that life has essentially no meaning inherent to it. Freedom presupposes a person realizing that he is condemned to be free as part of his human condition and then seizing this freedom to make his own life mean something. This understanding of freedom reveals the understanding that for choices a person makes, the person only has himself to blame. It also gives one a feeling of despair as there seems to be nothing to hope for but ourselves. This understanding of freedom frees a person from a fatalistic view of God who has supposedly set a path for us to follow. This liberates a person from believing in a predestined life, that everything has been planned from above. Thus, this reveals that poverty is not a fate willed by God and passive suffering of it yields eternal rewards. Moreover, this crushes heaven and God as a drug to escape from the reality of sin confronting man. Lastly, this destroys the notion of discovering what the meaning of one’s life is, since it has no inherent meaning.
On a deeper level, a person is most free when this person realizes all that he could be and all that he could do but still chooses freely to offer that freedom to work towards a common good as reason dictates. This sacrifice of freedom for a higher value is true freedom. Mary could have said no to the angel, married Joseph and lived a normal Jewish life. But in saying yes, Mary surrenders her entire freedom freely, her future and her dreams.
Thus, as a model of faith, Mary calls us to recognize our freedom as human beings but more than that, to be truly free in surrendering all for the common good in the name of Love, to freely fight for what reason dictates as good and to bring about the Kingdom of God on Earth.
Lk 1:26-38
The angel Gabriel was sent from God
to a town of Galilee called Nazareth,
to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph,
of the house of David,
and the virgin’s name was Mary.
And coming to her, he said,
“Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you.”
But she was greatly troubled at what was said
and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.
Then the angel said to her,
“Do not be afraid, Mary,
for you have found favor with God.
“Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son,
and you shall name him Jesus.
He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High,
and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father,
and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever,
and of his kingdom there will be no end.”
But Mary said to the angel,
“How can this be,
since I have no relations with a man?”
And the angel said to her in reply,
“The Holy Spirit will come upon you,
and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.
Therefore the child to be born
will be called holy, the Son of God.
And behold, Elizabeth, your relative,
has also conceived a son in her old age,
and this is the sixth month for her who was called barren;
for nothing will be impossible for God.”
Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.
May it be done to me according to your word.”
Then the angel departed from her.
Image : Painting by Fra Angelico
Greetings in the name of our LORD JESUS!
