How God Works to Set Everyone Free...

Towards the end of this year of Jubilee, the celebrations for particular groups are coming quickly one after another, reminding us of the universality of God’s grace, which transforms all sectors of human society. In recent weeks, there have been Jubilee celebrations for agricultural workers, for the armed forces and the police, for bankers, for politicians, jurists and civil servants, for transport workers, for journalists and communications workers, for the handicapped, for Catechists and religion teachers, for the world of entertainment.

Each group comes to Rome and makes its Jubilee exercises, walking through the Holy Door, going to confession, moving through the Way of the Cross or other religious devotions, celebrating the Holy Eucharist, sometimes putting on a sporting event or a musical performance. The pilgrims from the various professions then meet with the Holy Father. The Pope’s discourse to each group moves from an appreciation of their life and work to a reflection on its moral dimensions. Most often, the Pope shows how this group’s particular activity is a service to universal human dignity. He then counsels concern for the poor and for those most often overlooked or effectively excluded from the universal human family.

To bankers, for example, Pope John Paul II spoke of economic credit as a means of building human community: “If banks aim solely at pursuing maximum profits for themselves, ... they do not present themselves as instruments of growth and development for the community.” To agricultural workers: “If the world of the most refined technology is not reconciled with the simple language of nature in a healthy equilibrium, then the life of man will run ever greater risks, of which we already see the first worrying signs ....(W)hen we become tyrants and not guardians of the earth, then that earth will sooner or later rebel.” To jurists: “It is law which shows the unity of mankind and the equality between all human beings.” Jurists are to “denounce all situations where human dignity is disdained.” To the disabled he spoke of “the right that every handicapped man and woman has, in every country of the world, to a dignified life ... It is possible and a duty to do more in the various ways that civil coexistence demands: from biomedical research to prevent disability, to care, to assistance, to rehabilitation, to new social integration .... It is even more important to protect human relationships, relationships of support, friendship and sharing.”

In recognizing all human activity as a service to God and the entire human family, each group and each individual discovers how to be truly free, how to escape from their own exclusive concerns and contribute to the dignity of everyone. Sharing a range of concerns that embraces the entire human family is part of professing the Catholic faith. A wide range of concerns therefore also marked the agenda of the U.S. Bishops’ meeting in Washington D.C. a few weeks ago. The bishops spoke of the Sudan and the Middle East, of welcoming immigrants and lobbying for immigration law reform to assure respect for human dignity, of the need to rethink the criminal justice system, of the media at the service of society.

God sustains and accompanies every human activity. Nothing should therefore be foreign or extrinsic to the Church’s vision. But God also works not only through us but directly in extraordinary ways to assure our salvation and set everyone free. During Advent we come face to face with God’s direct intervention in human history. To enable us to recognize that it is God who is working directly to bring new life to the human family, he asks a virgin, Mary, to bring into this world a Son who is also God’s eternal Word. The blood that Jesus shed to set us free was formed in the womb of the Virgin Mary; the person that was Jesus was begotten of God the Father. Only a virgin mother makes clear whose Son this is. Only a virgin who freely becomes a mother can be the new Eve, the mother of redeemed humanity.

Virginity and celibacy are sometimes dismissed as strange, but that’s the very point. Mary’s virginity, before, during and after Jesus’ birth, throws God’s activity into the spotlight. Jesus himself lived and died a virgin, the perfect expression of the Father’s love for all Jesus’ brothers and sisters in the human family. Celibacy accepted freely for the sake of God’s kingdom highlights the immediate action of God in our lives. When lived lovingly, without excessive self-preoccupation or narcissism, it frees not only those who live it through God’s grace but everyone else as well. Mary’s virginity was social in a culture that thought God required everyone to marry. Celibacy is social in a culture that believes having sex is necessary in order to be human. Mary’s virginity in the mystery of the Incarnation and consecrated celibacy in the mystery of God’s kingdom tell the world that God, and only God, acts to set us all free for all eternity.

Every human group’s particular activity can contribute to the dignity and freedom of everyone else. Virginity and celibacy, freely chosen and made fruitful only through God’s own activity, show how God works to set everyone free. That’s what the Archangel Gabriel told the Virgin Mary; that’s the lesson everyone takes to heart in praying the Hail Mary, especially during these weeks of Advent. God bless you.

Sincerely yours in Christ,

Francis Cardinal George, OMI
Archbishop of Chicago