"When daylight came, Jesus left the house and made His way to a lonely place."
Gospel of Luke
A Jesuit by the name of George Maloney describes Jesus as the freest of all Persons. In the retreat book of his which I have used many times, Maloney poses a question: "How do you know you are free?" True freedom, he would say, is what Jesus possessed. It consists in freely determining to live your life as your Heavenly Father would wish us to do. It means in all the choices that we make, we act out of love to please God. And of course, this freedom only comes as we deeply and personally experience God's love for us through Christ. Do you experience Christ's love for you in that way?
In the gospel of Luke, we read of a whole list of successes that Jesus experienced in healing those who were ill. Simon's mother-in-law is healed of a high fever. And then many sick people begin to arrive at Simon's house suffering from a variety of ailments. And Jesus cured them. Despite all this amazing stuff that was going on, I still find the most revealing passage in this Gospel reading is that after all this, when daylight came, Jesus left the house and made His way to a lonely place. Why would that be?
Because we cannot possibly remain free, in fact we cannot do too much of anything of God's work, unless we take time to pray. And prayer for Jesus would not be for the purpose of trying to get God's will to conform to His, but to get His will to conform to God's. True freedom is our determination to live our lives as our Heavenly Father would wish us to.
As we look out at the world, we see much confusion, much suffering, lives turned upside down, people who seem lost, without any moral compass to follow, and most of it is a result of our insistence on doing things our own way, in absence of God's divine plan for us, in absence of even consulting God's loving presence which is all around us.
In the Gospel reading, when the crowds found Jesus, they came with the insistence that He continue on with all the activities of the day before. Jesus said no, I must go and proclaim the Good news of God's kingdom to others, because that is what I am sent to do. My will is to do the will of my Father, not chase after empty dreams.
The only way we can change the world, is to change ourselves. And when we change ourselves through prayer, discernment, and a desire to live in accordance with God's plan for us, then the world will change because we are part of the world.
St. Paul affirms this in his letter to the Colossians - "The Good News which has reached you, he says, is spreading all over the world and producing the same results as it has among you ever since the day when you heard about God's grace and understood what this really is."
As we recognize Christ's love for us, as we adjust our lives to live in accordance with God's plan, we begin to understand what this is all about. We become instruments of change for a world in much need of God's grace and light.
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