Daily Reflection
of Creighton University's Online Ministries
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October 11th, 2010
by

Eileen Burke-Sullivan

Theology Department
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Monday in the 28th Week in Ordinary Time
[467] Galatians 4:22-24, 26-27, 31-5:1
Psalm 113:1b-2, 3-4, 5a+6-7
Luke 11:29-32

Back in 1978, the German Theologian, Karl Rahner, SJ, published a text in which he placed himself in the “voice” of St. Ignatius Loyola speaking to the human community of the 20th Century.   It is an imaginative and daring way of interpreting Ignatius’ theological and spiritual insights in modernity.  Ignatius, á la Rahner, says: “I knew God himself, not simply human words describing him.  I knew God and the freedom which is an integral part of him and which can only be known through him and not as the sum total of finite realities and calculations about them.”

I quote this short passage from the Rahner text because it reflects directly on what Saint Paul is telling us in his letter to the Galatians in today’s liturgy.  Ignatius and Rahner, like Paul, were convinced that the very freedom that God enjoys is granted to those who choose to live their human lives in the manner of Jesus.  “For freedom Christ set us free; so stand firm and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery”, the apostle writing to the Galatian community asserts in no uncertain terms.

A high value is placed on freedom and its corollaries of choice and the chance to direct one’s own life in this modern Western society.  And yet I think that both Paul and Ignatius would tell us that most of us don’t have the foggiest idea what real freedom is. It is the freedom of being genuinely human, instead of being bound by the burden of having to control our world.  It is the freedom of being loved and loving irrevocably the source of our creation.  To put it simply, fear is the one work of the enemy of human nature that will destroy our freedom more than any other. Fear of death, fear of being unacceptable, fear of  __________.  (You fill in the blank) But if God is for us, who or what do we have to fear, Paul asserts elsewhere.

A few years ago I heard an interview with one of the leaders of the spy system in Russia during the cold war.  When asked how he got people to spy for Russia against their own countries he said that money is the first weapon, and most people are bought if you find the right price.  But ultimately, if people are not dazzled or controlled by money, they will be controlled by fear – either that their darkest secrets will be revealed, or that someone they love will be harmed.  “If a person cannot be coerced by money or fear we had to find a way to get rid of him or her” this spy leader asserted, “such a person is simply too dangerous for any government to handle because they live confident that they will not be destroyed, and soon others will follow them, and the whole system of empire is undermined.”

I know all this to be true.  Then why am I afraid?  For what 30 pieces of silver might I be bought?  Or you – of what are you afraid?  For what price could you be led away from God’s Reign?   Perhaps Rahner has the right of it, our faith is undermined by the prevailing atheism or agnosticism of our world and we are afraid that our experience of God’s love is not real.  In today’s Gospel Jesus accused his own generation of being faithless – how will he typify ours? 

“This generation is an evil generation; it seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it, except the sign of Jonah.”
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