On Interior Freedom (3rd week of Lent)

The season of Lent is a period when we strive to grow in genuine interior freedom, which is acquired through love and obedience. Our father teaches:
“All that we must do must be motivated by love and not force. We must love to obey rather than fear to disobey. I leave you the spirit of liberty; not the liberty that excludes obedience, because this would be a liberty of the flesh, but the true spirit of liberty which includes obedience. When you have to omit your practices of piety for a just and charitable reasons, I want you to make use of this occasion as a kind of obedience; then love will compensate for the spiritual exercises you have missed” (Letters 234)
In a memorable phrase, the Apostle Paul declared: “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free” (Gal. 5:1). The story of Jesus Christ, as it comes to life in his followers, is a story of freedom, but a freedom constrained by the Cross and deeply at odds with individualistic notions of liberty.