INDEPENDENCE DAY AND FREEDOM

Our Fourth of July Independence Day is an appropriate time to reflect on the gift of freedom and the responsibility that comes along with it. We are so blessed to enjoy the freedoms outlined in our United States Constitution and Bill of Rights.  The expectation of transparency and mutual respect that accompanies them helps to create a social fabric of expansive rights and of liberty for all of us. We do well to remember the cost of preserving these freedoms especially for our military personnel and their families. They in particular are bearing the cost of our freedoms in a heroic way. We need to keep them always in our prayers.

The flip side of freedom is responsibility. Hebrew and Christian Sacred Scriptures always present these two, freedom and responsibility, as indivisibly joined. In a democracy, this fact is clear when it comes to exercising our right to vote. We need to be actively involved in determining the future of local and national priorities and decisions. We can help to shape social policy in a significant way only if we educate ourselves and vote our values and consciences. Exercising our freedom to vote is the most important way of expressing our responsibility.

For Christian people, in addiction, there is the added dimension of sharing in the sovereignty of God. We have been given a share in the stewardship responsibility for our world and for all of life. This is a sacred trust and a great privilege. We have the responsibility to use our intelligence, creativity, courage and hard work to help create a world and nation that is congruent with the providential will and design of God. Our freedom is not only a freedom from tyranny and oppression but it is a freedom for establishing a social order that really works to be a community on all levels. The ongoing practice of dialogue, cooperation and a commitment to the common good is critical if all are to enjoy the fruits of freedom.

Independence is a gift to be cherished. It must be accompanied, however, by actions of responsibility that express the most fundamental spiritual truth that we are all totally dependent upon the love and mercy of God.  May God Bless America and help us to live more fully and purposefully as the “Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.”.

– Msgr. Michael D. McGraw