JULY 23, 2017
12:00 NOON EXTRAORDINARY FORM (LATIN) MASS
In middle of the 19th century, individuals in Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana created what has now been called the “Underground Railroad.” Sites are still remembered on those secret lines of freedom. Where “freedom seekers,” or escaped slaves, would be moved from “depot” to “depot” by “conductors.”
It was dangerous work. Slaves who were caught would be severely beaten. Those who helped them to hide and eventually escape could be forced to pay the cost of replacing an escaped slave to Southern plantation owners.
The Federal Government even passed stricter laws to try to discourage this lawless sort of behavior on the part of abolitionists and sympathetic whites in the north. Regardless of the law, the Underground Railroad continued.
In that era, one could have safely declared that the “law of the land” was established, and doing nothing was certainly easier than risking injury and financial loss.
A good number of the freedom seekers eventually settled in Michigan. Others fled across the Detroit and St. Clair rivers into Canada.
It is unknown exactly how many escaped slavery through the Underground Railroad. Estimates range upwards of 100,000 … with 30,000 relocating to Canada.
In today’s Epistle from St. Paul’s letter to the Romans, he speaks to us of slavery to sin, and freedom in Christ. In the first several century, believing in Christ was a substantial risk. Christians were called “atheists” – in that they refused to worship the Roman pantheon of gods and goddesses. There were fines, and prison … and also gruesome deaths.
What is the point of risking an easy life to believe in and follow Christ?
We hear in the Gospel that the end result will be either eternal citizenship in the Kingdom of Heaven, or else being cast into the everlasting fires of Hell.
What, then, is the “risk?”
If individuals were willing to risk everything for temporal freedom, how much more should we be willing to risk for eternal freedom?
True freedom is found in Christ Jesus, Our Lord. True freedom is found in casting off the slavery to sin, and living our lives according to God’s law, and the Gospel of Christ.
As we approach this altar to receive the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ … let us reflect on the “long game.” Let us view the “big picture” of eternity vs. the here-and-now. For indeed, “the wages of sin is death. But the grace of God is life everlasting; in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
