JANUARY 27, 2019
9:00 AM, 5:30 PM ORDINARY FORM (ENGLISH) MASSES
The Pennsylvania System – as applied to prisons or penitentiaries – arose in the early 19th Century in Pennsylvania and New York.
Prior to this penitential novelty, individuals could be imprisoned in work houses for idleness or vagrancy. Other petty crimes were punished by fines, whippings, or public humiliation.
The unique feature of the Pennsylvania System was that the punishment for ones’ crime was to sit in a room waiting out ones sentence in solitary confinement. Sort of like a giant “time out.” The idea was to place a criminal in a situation free from the temptations of the world, and to allow him to contemplate the moral lessons he had previously ignored.
Current prisons, it would seem, combine features of workhouses, humiliation, and the idealism of first penitentiaries.
Today is the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time.
The first reading comes from the Book of Nehemiah, which is an historical record of the return of the Babylonian exiles to the Promised Land after 70 years of captivity in Babylon. Ezra the priest reads the entirety of the Law – that is, most likely, the Five Books of Moses (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) – as they seek to re-establish their historical form of worship and re-learn their national and cultural identity.
The Psalm spoke of God’s Word being Spirit and life – while praising God’s Law (and decrees, precepts, commands, and ordinances) in the verses.
God’s Law is not meant to be a penal system – or a punishment. Rather, it instructs us in freedom – freedom from slavery … or captivity to sin, the flesh, or the world.
Sin is not necessarily merely the breaking of an arbitrary rule. Sin is a disordered act or affection – in other words something out of order with God’s Will for us.
To live in God’s Will is freedom – an opportunity to live in God’s grace in this world, and abide in His glory for eternity.
This is the the “liberty” and “freedom” that Jesus is speaking about when He reads from the Prophet Isaiah in the Gospel.
Of course a mere eight verses later in Luke’s Gospel,
[The people] rose up, drove [Jesus] out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town had been built, to hurl him down headlong.Nobody likes to be held captive. Or worse, to find out that what they thought was freedom is in reality bondage. As Americans, I believe, we all take great pride in our freedoms and liberties. But despite the civil order, the spiritual reality is, “all have sinned” … yet the promise is that we “are justified freely by [God’s] grace through the redemption in Christ Jesus”
We are given a choice every moment of every day: death or life … freedom or captivity.
Freedom is found in Jesus Christ – He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life … Freedom is found in living a life for Christ – through, with, and in Him … Freedom is found in a life of grace – abiding in Faith, Hope, and Love.
As we approach this altar to receive the Sacred Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ – let us come to Him seeking to receive true Freedom as children of God, redeemed in Christ, and filled with His Holy Spirit.
