How do you understand the dignity of the human person? Are you willing to attribute the rights you want for yourself to other persons as well? - Daily Reflections May 7,2014

FREEDOM IS FOUND IN OBEDIENCE

 

Pope Francis is very clear on this matter. True freedom is experienced in obedience to God’s will for our lives — obedience in living our lives according to the beauty and dignity of the human person we had been created to be. Most people, and probably a majority of Christians, will contradict what I have just written. How can it be freedom if it is obedience — doing what someone else tells you to do? This sentiment is derived from an incorrect understanding of freedom. Freedom is not the license to do whatever we want to do; true freedom is the opportunity we have been given to live according to the people we have been created to be by God.

       Any act that does not reflect the dignity of the human person, as created in the image and likeness of God, is not a truly free act. It is an act of slavery, an act governed by the power of sin at work in the world and in the individual’s life.

       What does it mean to be free? There are many answers to this question, but the correct answer should be rooted in the Scriptural understanding of the human person being created in the image and likeness of God. What is at stake in the various definitions of freedom is really the more fundamental understanding of the human person tied to the understanding of freedom.

       More often than not, the world’s understanding of freedom is tied to an incoherent understanding of the human person who wants to attribute rights to only a limited number of people and not everyone. This is where the Church stands out as one of the very few, and maybe the only group, arguing that whatever dignity and rights we attribute to one class of people has to be attributed to all. Hence the Church’s stance against euthanasia and abortion and its teachings on sexual and social justice matters. There are times when the Church is not the best example of its own teachings, but at least it has a coherent position. Fr. Steve Tynan, MGL

 

REFLECTION QUESTIONS: How do you understand the dignity of the human person? Are you willing to attribute the rights you want for yourself to other persons as well?

 

Holy Spirit, help me to see and wonder at the beauty and dignity of the human person created in the image and likeness of God. I want to be able to see You in all people