Welcome Deacon Matthew Pfleger - Our Lady of Good Counsel

10 | The Good Counsel Courier Vol. 4 | Issue 2 | April 26, 2012
www.olgcnj.org
Freedom and the Resurrection
By Father Jim O’Neill
What is freedom Elements in society would have us believe that freedom
is to do what we want. While that is an aspect of freedom, it is not enough and
sometimes even detrimental to true freedom. We see a better, deeper, and truer
answer in the Compendium to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, question
#363.
Freedom is the power given by God to act or not to act, to do this or to
do that, and so to perform deliberate actions on one’s own responsibility.
Freedom characterizes properly human acts. The more one does what is
good, the freer one becomes. Freedom attains its proper perfection when
it is directed toward God, the highest good and our beatitude. Freedom
implies also the possibility of choosing between good and evil. The choice
of evil is an abuse of freedom and leads to the slavery of sin.
God the Father sent His Son to redeem us - to set us free from the slavery of sin
so that we might experience the fullness of freedom, joy, peace, and love with Him
in Heaven. We see this more clearly in the Resurrection stories we hear during
the Easter season. Jesus appears to His disciples several times to forgive them,
strengthen them, and commission them to proclaim Him to all the world. Jesus
desires that all of us become freer, choose Him, and ultimately be with Him in
Heaven.
I recently heard about a survey regarding Heaven on the EWTN show, “Living
Right with Dr. Ray.” People were asked to rank several celebrities on the likelihood
that they would go to Heaven. Mother Teresa (who was living at the time) ranked
first at 87%. They were also asked the likelihood that they themselves would go to
Heaven. That came out to 92%. How could we as a society rate ourselves holier
than Mother Teresa Dr. Ray offered his idea that many in our society think that we
can define what is good for ourselves.
The reality is that God is the one who defines what is good. He is the ultimate
good Himself. If we want to be truly happy and free, then we ought to seek out
the ultimate good, the One who is already seeking us. He is ready to forgive us,
strengthen us, and share His life with us. He already does so most especially in the
Eucharist as preparation for seeing Him face to face.
Prayer for the Protection of Religious Liberty
O GOD OUR CREATOR,
from your provident hand we have received
our right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
You have called us as your people and given us
the right and the duty to worship you, the only true God,
and your Son, Jesus Christ.
Through the power and working of your Holy Spirit,
you call us to live out our faith in the midst of the world,
bringing the light and the saving truth of the Gospel
to every corner of society.
We ask you to bless us
in our vigilance for the gift of religious liberty.
Give us the strength of mind and heart
to readily defend our freedoms when they are threatened;
give us courage in making our voices heard
on behalf of the rights of your Church
and the freedom of conscience of all people of faith.
Grant, we pray, O heavenly Father,
a clear and united voice to all your sons and daughters
gathered in your Church
in this decisive hour in the history of our nation,
so that, with every trial withstood
and every danger overcome—
for the sake of our children, our grandchildren,
and all who come after us—
this great land will always be “one nation, under God,
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
We ask this through Christ our Lord.
Amen.
THE BIBLE: Acts of the Apostles
By Richard J. Lohkamp
In the weeks following Easter, the
first readings in the Sunday liturgy are
selections from Acts. They are mostly
excerpts from the early testimonies of eye
witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection. While it
is placed after the Gospel of John in the
Bible, Acts is actually the second volume
of a two volume work by Luke. The first
volume is the Gospel according to Luke.
Luke begins Acts as follows:
“In the first book, Theophilus, I dealt
with all that Jesus did and taught until
the day he was taken up, after giving
instructions through the Holy Spirit to
the apostles whom he had chosen. He
presented himself alive to them by many
proofs after He had suffered, appearing
to them during forty days and speaking
about the kingdom of God.”
“While meeting with them, He
enjoined them not to depart from
Jerusalem, but to wait for ‘the promise of
the Father about which you have heard me speak’”
“… you will receive power when the holy Spirit comes upon you, and
you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria,
and to the ends of the earth.’ ’When He had said this, as they were
looking on, He was lifted up, and a cloud took him from their sight.”
(Acts 1:1-9)
After the account of the Holy Spirit’s coming, Acts is the story of Peter
and Paul with cameo appearances of other Apostles (James, Philip). It
provides a broad survey of the spread of “the Way” from Jerusalem where
the eleven retreated after Jesus was taken up to Paul’s first imprisonment in
Rome, the point at which the book abruptly ends.
Acts chronicles Paul’s work – his visits
to the churches that he started in Greece,
Macedonia, and Asia Minor. When read
in conjunction with his epistles (letters
that he later wrote back to these churches)
you can see how Paul’s thinking about
Christ and the “Way of Christ” develops.
Acts ends with Paul in prison in Rome
(about 50 AD). Rome was considered the
“ends of the earth” suggesting that Luke
believed that Paul had fulfilled Christ’s
commission to preach to the “ends of the
earth.”
Acts, then, is the story of how the
Christian Way began as a “sect” of
Judaism with a small band of followers
of Jesus in Jerusalem. The book tells how
this small group learned by its uncanny
experience what the “Way” really entails
and that it was intended to be shared with
other people who were not Jews and who
did not have the Jewish heritage.
Luke is very careful to point out that
this “experience” and this learning process of the followers of Jesus is
energized by the Holy Spirit, the Power from on high promised by Jesus.
Through this Power, Jesus leads and guides the apostles and their fellow
followers of Jesus. It is the power of the Spirit imparted by the risen Jesus
that empowers their actions.
If “Theophilus” is each one of us, then the promise of the Spirit is
made to each of us, and the power exhibited in Acts is promised to each
of us according to the role and vocation that we have. This Power and
this learning through life experience are not reserved to the first century.
People like Peter and Paul learned through prayer and honest, non-selfserving
reflection to hear and to trust this Guide.