It all begun with my plan to go and see my American friend in hospital as the word was out that he was nearing death. So I was already to go after mass to the hospital and then, 15 minutes before mass began, along comes my good friend, Freddy, to tell me that the guy had died the night before. It was a blessed release. Still to go just like that. I was rocked. The news stayed with me throughout mass. No matter how much I focused on the present, my front billing was elsewhere. My friend was free at last.
My homily at mass centred at how limited our mindset, our outlook on life can be. It was Australia Day and so, as a good Australian, I reflected on my identity as an Australian. I identified how I was brought up in an Irish Catholic ghetto, a ghetto I much value but is still best to be in the past as it can be all too limiting. Our world and life are much bigger and deserve and demand much more than a ghetto mentality. This struck me recently when talking with an Irish member of our faith community about his child's preparing for the sacraments. He is married to a lovely Thai woman, a Buddhist. He mentioned how they were raising their child in both faiths. This just rocked me. I stood back mentally and realised that this was my Irish ghetto mentality at work. I appreciated instinctively that it has stayed with me, making its mark on me yet again after all these years. Living here for so long, I quickly judged that he was smart and I was still held back by my ghetto mentality. The point was about our venturing out from our ghetto or narrow mentalities to be people of vision and broad horizons for the sake of our world and faith. How to do this? On Word of God Sunday, be nourished by the scriptures. I was being freed. .
Then it was onto the monthly faith sharing group where a young Indonesian woman shared about how free it is here. Well, I just jumped straight in with my basic line that here is no freer than elsewhere. It just may appear that way to outsiders. Here actually life is controlled, the social structures are tight and people are very conservative. But aren't people conservative everywhere? It is a myth that foreigners coming here land in a paradise of freedom. Yet it remains a shared experience for so many foreigners here, me included, that freedom comes from being here. Why is that? I name it as the freedom that comes with being an outsider, standing on the edge of a society, not becoming a fully immersed member of it. It is freedom that comes with being away from the familiar constraints of the home scene. It is the freedom that comes with being foreigners as the locals do not exert the same controls over us due to our being held at a distance as unknowns. People are yearning for freedom and looking for it in many ways.
Freedom? Are we any freer anywhere in particular in our world? I believe not as the constant ever remains of belonging to a common humanity. As such, no matter where we are, two principles hold.
Actions have consequences.
With freedom goes responsibility.
And, of course, the truth sets us free.
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