By Father James Rodriguez
As a student in our college seminary, I often walked by a Department of Sanitation depot located on the way to the nearest bus stop. I began my priestly formation in the fall of the year 2000, and a year later, terrified with the rest of my city, sought hope. Oddly enough it was the Department of Sanitation that provided me with a phrase I had never heard before but instantly loved: “Freedom isn’t free.”
That sign in front of their building gave me a daily reminder not only to appreciate the liberties we enjoy as Americans and the price at which they were gained and protected but to see in the Crucified the ultimate price of my ultimate freedom. I’m reminded of these words as I read today’s readings.
Each day’s readings are arranged intentionally, as the First Reading and Gospel are usually correlated, often in a rather obvious way, following the holy logic of St. Augustine who brilliantly said, “the New Testament is concealed in the Old and the Old Testament is revealed in the New.”In today’s readings, there is a less obvious correlation between the first and second readings, but one worth looking into as it presents a juxtaposition — two very different reactions to God’s salvific purpose.
On July 4, in which we thank Him for our nation’s independence, these two readings serve as mirror images of the perils and price of freedom. In the Gospel, our Lord’s hands seem bound by the people’s lack of faith, which He, in typical fashion, uses to invite us into deeper freedom through His friendship, the very gift He came to give us.
Through Ezekiel, God sends among His rebellious people a prophet to challenge and awaken them from their complacency. There is love, as always, in God’s strong language. He speaks as a father concerned for His wayward children, people whose freedom He fought for and gained time and time again. They, like we so often do, squandered it, allowing human obstinacy, hard-heartedness, in a word — pride — to enslave them.
Instead of leaving them to their own devices, He invited them anew to true freedom, to recognize the high dignity for which they were made and to which He never tired of calling them. How true these words are of us in this time of intellectual pride and hedonistic surrender to our base desires!
On the one hand, we can feel that we have outgrown the faith of our fathers, yet on the other, we can act like spoiled children who insist on having what we want when we want it, with no regard for the people we hurt along the way including, ultimately, ourselves. Through it all, the Church stands as a fierce reminder that all is not lost, for God is with us in the Holy Eucharist, Sacred Scripture, and the prophets in our midst who call us to use our God-given freedom to give God the glory.
St. Paul prophetically holds up for our reflection today an image of true freedom. He does not appear free. Rather, he bears “a thorn in the flesh, an angel of Satan to beat me, to keep me from being too elated.” These mysterious words have been pored over by scholars and saints with enough insight to fill libraries. For our purposes here, it is enough to see in them the humility that defined Saint Paul. Gone is the hubris of the great persecutor. Now he is “content with weakness.”
What a great lesson for us all, to freely embrace the suffering that is the price of discipleship, and to endure the pain that comes, with our eyes elevated to higher realms. The Apostle shows us that weakness is not always something to be excised and overcome, but rather something to be offered to God in smallness and faith which, ironically, convert it into strength when we realize that we don’t have to be picture-perfect to be heroic. All we have to be is honest.
In divine honesty and fatherly love echoing Ezekiel, Jesus chastises His detractors, those who “took offense” because they did not look past the wise words and wondrous works to the man Himself, to the God Who quite simply wants to be with us. In utter freedom, he made Himself weak in the eyes of the world to convey to us the secret that St. Paul learned, that the key to holiness and true greatness is surrender to the only one who is holy and truly great.Like the Israelites and Corinthians of old, you and I are invited to share in divine independence, which is only found in dependence on the Divine. May we always find this great gift in the Eucharist, where He is truly Emmanuel, God-with-us.
Readings for the 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Ezekiel: 2:2-5
2 Corinthians: 12:7-10
Mark: 6:1-6
Father James Rodriguez is pastor of St. Rose of Lima Church in Rockaway Beach.
