QUARANTINED FREEDOM
“then you will truly be free” – John 8: 36
In these days of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have, for perhaps the first time in our lives, experienced a restriction on our everyday freedoms. Ordinary outings, such as going to work, watching a movie in a theater or visiting friends, have come to a halt for many of us. These restraints might have us poignantly longing for the freedom Jesus describes in today’s gospel.
Though we will continue to live our earthly lives to strive for the great freedoms of heaven, perhaps God is offering us a mystical sort of freedom at present. After all, in the mystery of Christianity, God’s wise plans seem to repeatedly unfold in the paradoxes. The virgin conceived. God almighty came in the form of a helpless infant. The sinless one died for our sins. Death led to the great victory of Easter day. Could the stripping away of some of our basic freedoms highlight the Lord’s offering of some paradoxical freedoms which are more expansive than we can fathom?
The distance from some of our family members and friends might allow us a greater sense of solidarity and connection with them. The inability to work could allow us to devote ourselves more fully to the spiritual work of our souls. Embracing our loneliness could allow us to find great friendship in the Lord. In the silence, we might be able to hear Him louder than ever.
In this time of disarray and uncertainty, let us be filled with the peace of the Lord. Let us seek to attain the true freedom that He offers us, whether bound by earthly chains or fully free as the disciples supposed they were. And let us contemplate the words of Father Gregory Boyle as he reflects on the narrowness of the way of the cross:
“Jesus, in Matthew's gospel, says, "How narrow is the gate that leads to life." Mistakenly, I think, we've come to believe that this is about restriction. The way is narrow. But really it wants us to see that narrowness is the way... It's about funneling ourselves into a central place. Our choice is not to focus on the narrow, but to narrow our focus. The gate that leads to life is not about restriction at all. It is about an entry into the expansive.”
Patty Hussey