“we will come to him and make our dwelling with him”
How are we liberated? The entrance antiphon says that the Lord has liberated His people. It is in the Easter season that we celebrate the liberation that the passion, death and resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ have merited us. We pray in the Regina Caeli, “O God, who by the Resurrection of Thy Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, didst vouchsafe to make glad the whole world; grant, we beseech Thee, that through the intercession of the Virgin Mary, His Mother, we may lay hold of the joys of eternal life.” We are free now to live, to live not just in the temporal life, but to lay hold of the joys of eternal life.
What are we free from? We are set free from the snares of sin. Just as the Israelites were released from the bonds of slavery in Egypt we are set free from the bonds of sin. Just as Noah provided safety from the flood within the ark, we are provided safety from the flood of false teachings and trappings of the world within the ark of Saint Peter, the Church. Within the ark we find peace. Jesus tells us in today’s Gospel, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you”[i] Within the Church, we are given what the world cannot offer and will never be able to offer, namely peace and freedom. Many governments, companies, institutions claim to give peace and freedom, but these are empty promises when separated from Jesus Christ and His Church.
Why is it that we are free? We are free because we remain in the word of Christ; we trust in His word and do as He says. This trust and obedience to the word of Christ is rooted in the theological virtue of Charity. “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words.”[ii] We are free because of the indwelling of the Most Blessed Trinity. In this Gospel, Jesus tells us that the Father and the Son will come and make their dwelling within the soul of the faithful, the soul that “loves” and “keeps”. To love and to keep is essential to our lives. When we love someone or something we desire to obtain that which is the object of our love. Once we obtain that which we love, we desire to keep what we love.
MOVIE – Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
Frodo must choose to destroy the ring or to keep it. He has fallen in love with the power of the ring. Smegol who had possession of the ring before the Hobbits gave his whole life and desired nothing but the ring.
How do we stay free? In the tenth chapter of Saint John’s Gospel Jesus says, “My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. No one can take them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one can take them out of the Father’s hand. The Father and I are one.”[iii] No one can take us out of the hands of God, therefore if we are out of the hands of God it is by our own free will, we choose to leave.
We hear this same message when Jesus speaks to Mary and Martha in the tenth Chapter of Luke’s Gospel. “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.”[iv] As long as we choose and continue to firmly choose Christ, He cannot be taken from us. If Jesus cannot be taken from us, but any individual, institution, or even Satan and his demons, then the only way we could loose the “One thing necessary” is to either, one: give up Jesus, or two: never choose Him. However, when we do choose the one thing necessary, we can be sure that the Blessed Trinity will dwell within us.
What about the Holy Spirit; does He dwell within us as well? Yes. Any time one person of the Trinity is present all three are present. If the Father and Son are dwelling within us, so too is the Holy Spirit. In the Most Blessed Sacrament, we receive not only the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, but we also receive the Father and the Holy Spirit. The Father and the Spirit are never separated from the Son. The Gospel speaks of the Father and Son making there dwelling within us. Many times when we want to explain a reality we do so not in the whole but in parts. When we explain the reality of an engine, a computer, or even the human body, we usually take time to explain all the parts or components.
VIDEO – How to make a simple circuit
A basic circuit has three parts a battery, wire, and bulb. We explain the parts so that we can understand the whole. In beginning to comprehend the mystery of the Trinity, we first must know each person of the Trinity. Jesus does this with His disciples. First Jesus speaks of Himself, the second person of the Trinity, “Whoever loves me will keep my word”. He then speaks of the Father, the first person of the Trinity, “…and my Father will love him.” Jesus then speaks of the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, “I have told you this while I am with you. The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you.” Jesus often teaches about each person of the Trinity, and then tells us that the persons of the Trinity are one. The battery, wire, and bulb are one circuit. In the analogy of the circuit, the Father is the battery or source, the bulb is Jesus, the light, and the wire is the Holy Spirit. The Father has often been called the Lover, Jesus the Beloved, and the Holy Spirit, the shared love between Father and Son.
Search: Holy Trinity: One God in Three Persons
How do we reject freedom? In John chapter ten Jesus says, “No one can take them out of my hand…no one can take them out of the Father’s hand. The Father and I are one.” The Father’s hand and the Son’s hand are the same, for the Father and the Son are one. The Father’s hand created us and formed us; He is the potter, and we are the clay. The Son’s hand healed the blind, cured the lame, calmed the waters, and was pierced with a nail. We have heard the phrase, “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you”. Humanity pierced the hand that created us. What does this have to do with our freedom? Jesus hands after the Resurrection remained wounded to remind us of what our free will can do. Through our free will we can build skyscrapers, that same free will can also have people fly airplanes into skyscrapers. Through our free will, we can hold the hand of Jesus in even the most difficult times; even to death. Yet, with our free will we can pierce that same hand on to the cross. The hands of Christ remain wounded to remind us of our free will, to remind us of how easy it can be to pierce the very hand that created us.
VIDEO – Freedom’s Never Free
They tell me
'Freedom is never free.'
I know that-
More than most realize.
Freedom cost us more
Than we should have to give.
Freedom cost us blood.
It cost us the lives
Of our fathers,
Our sons,
Our brothers.
But while freedom is never free,
Remember-
It has been bought at great price,
And so is a thing of great value.
We must defend it,
From those who would take it away.
The defense of our freedoms
Will cost us-
More than we wish to pay.
But we must pay, to defend,
For if we try to make freedom free,
We forget-
True freedom is never free.
by James Grengs
Freedom is not free. “If you remain in my word, you will truly be my disciple, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”[v] We must remain in the Word, remain with the Word, even if this means our death as it meant the death of Christ. Saint Paul tells us, “As to his death, he died to sin once and for all; as to his life, he lives for God. Consequently, you too must thing of yourselves as [being] dead to sin and living for God in Christ Jesus. Therefore, sin must not reign over your mortal bodies so that you obey their desires. And do not present the parts of your bodies to sin as weapons of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as raised from the dead to life and the parts of your bodies to God as weapons for righteousness. For sin is not to have any power over you, since you are not under the law but under grace.”[vi]
[i] John 14:27
[ii] John 14:23
[iii] John 10:27-30
[iv] Luke 10:41-42
[v] John 8:31-32
[vi] Romans 6:10-14