Lent and Freedom

As  we continue our march through the desert of what frequently feels (at least to me) like the longest liturgical season known to mankind, I am reminded to look back to the book of Exodus and to remember what this whole thing is all about.  In many ways it is about religious freedom. When Moses went to Pharaoh he didn't ask him to let the Israelites move out of Egypt. No, he asked that the Israelites be allowed to go out into the desert and worship God the way God had asked them to.  I couldn’t help but notice some of the similarities to the way things are currently steering in our modern world, even here in the United States. In Europe studies have shown that 85% of hate crimes are directed towards Christians, here in the US we are increasingly told that our Catholic ideas and beliefs are outdated or unattainable and should therefore be “modernized.”  When I say “unattainable” I am referring in general to the area of chastity and purity.  In one internet forum that I was on last week someone was making fun of the idea that any Catholic man could enter into the Sacrament of marriage as a virgin.  The person online made it sound like having such a standard was the dumbest and most ridiculous idea anyone could ever have.  

When people say that we need to “modernize our beliefs” what they really mean is we need a new god.  We need to throw out the God of the Bible and embrace the secular gods of sex, money, and power.  Laws are being written, and have already been approved that will make this ideal increasingly difficult to resist.  Laws that require Catholics to go against their religion and begin start financially supporting practices that we have held for over 2000 years to be sinful. We will be required to support the secular worship of sexual pleasure. Catholics will be required to pay for men to mutilate their bodies and for a woman to take drugs that halt her natural functions or kill her unborn child.  Good, God fearing men and women across the country who believe this is morally reprehensible behavior will be forced against their will to fund these actions with their hard earned money.  They will not be free to say no. They will be in bondage to a culture of death, supporting the worship of gods they do not know and do not want. 

As I read the Exodus account in scripture this year I do so with a new level of understanding and empathy towards God’s chosen people.  I do not know what it means to be a physical slave.  I do not know what it is like to have my body beaten and my will broken by a whip in the hot desert sun. I do, however, know what it is like to be told that I may not worship the God of my Father’s in the way He has commanded me.  I do not know what it is like to have the government (Pharaoh) tell me to kill all my sons, because the population of slaves is getting out of hand. I do know what it is like to be told that no one cares if I am against abortion; I am still going to be forced to pay for the drugs that will help a mother kill her child.  I know what it is like when I tell people I plan to have 7 or 8 kids (true story) and they look at me like I am an idiot (let alone the sneers they offer my wife for going along with me). I know what it is like to live in a culture that hates children and tries to kill them.

I hate it when people tell me that what my Catholic faith calls holiness is unattainable and that I need to lower my standards and have some fun.  Those people are wrong. What our faith asks is NOT unattainable. It is not some impossible task or trick.  It merely requires faith and love. It requires that we believe in a God who loves us so much that He died a gruesome and humiliating death on a cross for our sins. Why would He die for an unattainable ideal?  I do not think so.  My wife and I were both virgins when we got married and she had never even kissed another man.  I shared her first kiss on the altar on our wedding day.  It was far from easy, but it was even further from unattainable.

Our God has not abandoned us, He never does.  He has given us priests, bishops and our Pope as a Moses to lead us out of slavery and into the Promised Land.  Will it be an easy journey? I doubt it, a journey of faith never is.  Did Pharaoh let Moses and the Israelites go the first time they asked, not hardly; but in the end he did let them go.  Remember that next time someone tells you that you are trying to live up to an impossible standard or that you believe in an old and outdated belief system. Take comfort in knowing that the reason our beliefs are so old is because the key to happiness has not changed.  We are all still broken and still trying to do our best to figure it all out.  I would rather have a high standard that I know is based on truth than a low standard that constantly shifts and changes because it is based on other people.  Lent is about freedom and the cost of that freedom.  We need look no further than the Cross to know that.