Sermon on True Freedom in Christ
Sixth Sunday after Pentecost
Sacred Heart Church – The Crescent
Limerick, Ireland
July 5, 2026
Rom6, 3-11
Mk 8, 1-9
Sermon
Celebrating the Mystery of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the second of the Joyful Mysteries of the Most Holy Rosary, we contemplate the mystery of God’s wondrous love In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
We can well identify ourselves with the crowd who had gone into the desert to be instructed by Christ. Clearly, the crowd was hungering for the word of truth which He alone could impart to them, and, for that reason, they had left the ordinary surroundings of their daily life and made pilgrimage to an extraordinary place to be with the Lord. The world had, in the commentary of Dom Prosper Guéranger on today’s Gospel, “grown weaker and weaker by the effects of original and subsequent sins” and had followed “false teachers, who gradually reduced her to the loss of that law and those gifts of nature which, as St. Ambrose expresses it, had been her vital patrimony.”[1] The crowd was not just going out to see a popular figure; they were hungering for Christ’s word of truth in a culture marked by pervasive confusion and error about the most fundamental realities of life. They remained with the Lord for three days, and thus He did not want to send them on their way without something to eat. At that point, Christ showed that He was not only speaking the word of truth to them but was also giving them the food of divine love, ultimately the Holy Eucharist, the Heavenly Bread of His true Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity.
Saint Paul instructs us on the reality of our life in Christ, which has its source in His Incarnation, Birth, Hidden Life at Nazareth and Public Ministry culminating in His Passion, Death, Resurrection and Ascension. Through the Sacrament of Baptism, we begin to live in Christ. We, like branches, are grafted into the Vine Who is Christ, drawing our life from Him.[2] Christ receives our hearts into His glorious-pierced Heart, in Which He cleanses them from sin and animates them by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the Fire of Divine Love. Let us listen to the words of Saint Paul:
Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.[3]
His language is not merely figurative, even as the attraction of the crowd to Christ did not arise from some insubstantial populism. Life in Christ is a true share in His suffering and dying, a true carrying of the Cross, which brings already now a share of the perfect happiness which is the sure and final destiny of the Way of the Cross.
Dom Prosper Guéranger comments on Saint Paul’s inspired teaching on the Christian life with these words:
The holiness, the sufferings, and then the glory of the Lord Jesus – in a word, His life continued in His members – this is St. Paul’s notion of the Christian life: a notion most simple and sublime, which, in the apostle’s mind, resumes the whole commencement, progress, and consummation of the work of the Spirit of love in every soul that is sanctified… If we be of St. Paul’s school, adopting, as we shall then do, the sentiments of our Lord Jesus Christ, and making them our own, we shall become other Christs, or, rather, one only Christ with the Man-God, by the sameness of thoughts and virtues, under the impulse of the same sanctifying Spirit.[4]
How much we need to return to the simple and sublime notion of holiness of life, to draw upon the grace of our baptism, to remain on the way of the Cross which alone brings us happiness! How much we, living members of the Body of Christ, need to be more deeply and securely united in heart with the Heart of Jesus, so that the Church may bring the truth and love of Christ to our culture!
I think of my homeland, the United States of America, which celebrated yesterday the 250th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. Invoking “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God”[5] to justify the people’s separation from the governance of the King of Great-Britain, in order to found a new nation, the Declaration of Independence made clear the truths upon which the new nation was founded:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.[6]
The document rightly observed that all government exists to secure the respect and safeguarding of these fundamental rights.
Yet almost two hundred years later, in 1973, the highest tribunal of the nation took away the right to life from the innocent and defenseless unborn,[7] and in 2015, in defiance of “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God,” the same Supreme Court redefined the nature of marriage and its fruit, the family, the first cell of the life of society.[8] The deadly confusion and error which such decisions represent for the United States of America, and similar confusion and error in other nations, demand from the Church a clear, courageous, and tireless witness to the word of Christ, to the truth written upon every human heart, the truth upon which the happiness of the individual and the common good absolutely depend. The Church cannot stand by silently or idly, while a people is destroying itself by lawlessness, even if the lawlessness be clothed in the garment of the highest judicial authority.
Where does the Church find the wisdom and courage to give witness to the truth which transforms society for the good of all? It is in the Heart of Jesus as He pours forth the grace of the Holy Spirit into our hearts, especially through the Sacraments. Today’s readings from the Holy Scriptures remind us that the baptized are consecrated to serve the saving work of Christ in the world, to give their lives, with Christ, for the transformation of the world.
Pope Saint John Paul II, in his first Encyclical Letter, Redemptor Hominis, reflecting upon the kingly mission of the baptized, reminded us:
Nowadays it is sometimes held, though wrongly, that freedom is an end in itself, that each human being is free when he makes use of freedom as he wishes, and that this must be our aim in the lives of individuals and societies. In reality, freedom is a great gift only when we know how to use it consciously for everything that is our true good. Christ teaches us that the best use of freedom is charity, which takes concrete form in self-giving and in service. For this “freedom Christ has set us free” [Gal 5, 1; cf. 5, 13] and ever continues to set us free. The Church draws from this source the unceasing inspiration, the call and the drive for her mission and her service among all mankind. The full truth about human freedom is indelibly inscribed on the mystery of the Redemption. The Church truly serves mankind when she guards this truth with untiring attention, fervent love and mature commitment and when in the whole of her own community she transmits it and gives it concrete form in human life through each Christian’s fidelity to his vocation. This confirms what we have already referred to, namely that man is and always becomes the “way” for the Church’s daily life.[9]
May we find in the Mystery of Faith, in the Eucharistic mystery, the pattern of our daily living for our salvation and the salvation of our world. May we be inspired to seek the truth of Christ by uniting our hearts to His own in the Eucharistic Sacrifice. Thus, we will strengthen ever more our life in Him through Baptism and bear abundant fruit for our freedom and the freedom of all men.
Let us now lift up our hearts, together with the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary, to the glorious-pierced Heart of Jesus, opened by the soldier’s spear on Calvary and forever opened for us in the Eucharistic Sacrifice. In the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus, may our hearts be purified of sin and inflamed with pure and selfless love. So may we live the truth of the Mystery of Faith, in fidelity to our baptismal consecration, for the salvation of the world.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Raymond Leo Cardinal BURKE
[1] “… épuisée depuis la chute première en pertes incessantes, … dans les mains des docteurs de mensonge jusqu’à cette lumière primitive et ces dons de nature qui formaient, selon l’expression de l’évêque de Milan, «son patrimoine vital».” Prosper Guéranger, L’année liturgique, Le temps après la Pentecôte, Tome II, 15ème éd. (Tours: Maison Alfred Mame et Fils, 1926), p. 149 [Hereafter, Guéranger]. English translation: Prosper Guéranger, The Liturgical Year, Time after Pentecost, Book II, tr. Laurence Shepherd (Fitwilliam, NH: Loreto Publications, 2000), p. 164 [Hereafter, GuérangerEng].
[2] Cf. Jn 15, 1-11.
[3] Rom 6, 3-4
[4] “La sainteté, les souffrances, et ensuite la gloire du Seigneur Jésus, sa vie même en un mot prolongée dans ses membres, telle est pour saint Paul la vie chrétienne : simple et sublime notion, qui résume à ses yeux le commencement, le progrès et la consommation du travail de l’Esprit d’amour en toute âme sanctifiée… Si le premier acte de la sanctification du fidèle enseveli dans son baptême avec Jésus-Christ a pour objet de le refaire tout entier, de le creer de nouveau dans cet Homme-Dieu, de greffer sa vie nouvelle sur la vie même du Seigneur Jésus pour en produire les fruits, nous ne serons point surpris que l’Apotre se refuse à tracer aux chrétiens d’autre procédé de contemplation, d’autre règle de conduite, que l’étude et l’imitation du Sauveur. La perfection de l’homme et sa récompense sont en lui seul : … A son école, prenant en nous les sentiments qu’avait Jésus-Christ, nous deviendrons d’autres Christs, ou plutôt un seul Christ avec l’Homme-Dieu, par l’union des pensées et la conformité des vertus sous l’impulsion du même Esprit sanctificateur.” Guéranger, pp. 145-146. English translation: GuérangerEng, pp. 160-161.
[5] The Constitution of the United States of America with the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Incorporation (New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 2002), p. 81 [Hereafter, Declaration of Independence].
[6] Declaration of Independence, p. 81.
[7] Cf. United States Supreme Court, Roe v. Wade.
[8] Cf. United States Supreme Court, Obergefell v. Hodges.
[9] “Hisce temporibus falso nonnumquam libertas creditur finis sibimet ipsi esse, homo tunc liber esse, cum libertate utitur, uti libet, huc igitur in vita singulorum hominum ac societatum esse contendendum. Attamen libertas est donum praestabile dumtaxat, cum eam conscii usupare scimus ad omnia, quae vere bona sunt. Docet enim nos Christus optimum libertatis usum esse caritatem, quae in dono ac ministero compleatur. «Hac libertate nos Christus liberavit» [Gal 5, 1; cfr. ibidem 13] semperque liberat. Hinc praeterea sine intermissione haurit Ecclesia incitamentum et invitamentum et impulsum ad exsequendum proprium munus ac ministerium inter omnes homines. Plena igitur veritas de humana libertate in Redemptionis mysterio est alte recondita. Hominum generi ecclesia reapse inservit, cum eandem veritatem tuetur indefatigabili mentis intentione et ardenti amore et studio maturo atque cum in universa sua communitate, per fidelitatem erga vocationem cuiusque Christiani, transmittit et solida forma hanc veritatem in vita hominum exprimit. Hoc demum modo confirmatur id, quod iam superius memoraviumus: nempe hominem esse fierique semper «viam» vitae cotidianae Ecclesiae.” Ioannes Paulus PP. II, Litterae Encyclicae Redemptor hominis, “Pontificali eius Ministerio ineunte,” die 4 Martii 1979, Acta Apostolicae Sedis 71 (1979), p. 320, n. 21. English translation: Pope John Paul II, Encyclicals (Trivandrum, Kerala, India: Carmel International Publishing House, 2005), pp. 1119-1120, no. 21.