Everybody knows what it means to be a slave. Everyone has some form of slavery in their lives. It could be smoking, watching too much football, eating too much candy.
The Gospel proposes a wonderful solution for our Christian life: how to live, how to proceed, in the United States in our current conditions.
Today, the Gospel proposes to us the young man who wants to be perfect (Luke 18:18-30). He tells Jesus that he keeps all of the commandments. For a Jewish man, this was the perfect way to live: there wasn’t anything more perfect than to keep the Ten Commandments that Moses received from God on Mount Sinai. But Jesus goes one step further, and this is the difference between the Old Testament and New Testament. Jesus encourages him to keep the Ten Commandments, but also not to forget to love his neighbor as himself. This is very important for us to see and to hear because it is also significant as regards the liberty and freedom that we need in the Christian life.
After the young many says, “I keep all the commandments, what more do I need to do?”
Jesus answers him, “Go, sell all that you have and give it to the poor, and follow me.”
But the young man remains sad, because he is rich, and he is not free from his possessions and his money. So, you may be thinking, “I am not rich. I am poor, so this Gospel is not for me.”
This is not true, because we all have possessions — things or attachments. Maybe they’re not riches. Maybe it is a career or beauty. Maybe it is money or a desire to be famous. Each one of us has some desire in our heart, everybody, and we need to ask ourselves: What are our attachments? What has first place in our hearts? These attachments become a problem for our freedom. Am I truly free to give up all of my attachments, maybe even life itself, to follow Jesus?
Our martyrs and bishops in Europe were able to give up their lives because Jesus Christ was, for them, their greatest possession, and their faith was a unique richness to reach the heavenly kingdom.
We are not in the period of communist persecution anymore, thanks be to God. Nonetheless, there are still some ideologies that try to convince us that our freedom consists in protecting and developing our attachments at all costs, and here begins the spiritual struggle.
The Mother of God was entirely free from everything. Her complete freedom allowed her to say to the Archangel Gabriel, “I am the handmaiden of the Lord. Let it be done to me according to your will.” Her freedom was where her true joy came from — her total availability to God in absolute freedom and detachment from all earthly things.
I pray that you will return home from this pilgrimage as a free human being, as children of God, who are saved by Jesus Christ, by his holy Blood on the holy cross, and by his resurrection.
Let us pray to the Mother of God to be freed, that is, to be granted freedom from all things, so as not to hesitate in deciding what is important for us to do to reach the heavenly kingdom.
✠ Most Rev. Milan Lach, SJ Bishop of the Eparchy of Parma
This column of the Voice of the Shepherd is based on the homily Bishop Lach preached at the 2019 pilgrimage in Uniontown.