John 8:31-42

Introductory Prayer:
Lord, you are life and truth and goodness. You are also peace and mercy. How grateful I am to have this moment to turn to you. Without you I can do nothing good. In fact, when I do good, it is you working through me, despite my failings. Thank you, Lord. Here I am ready to love you more.

Petition:
Grant me the grace, Lord, to remain in your word and to be set free by your truth.

1. A Vibrant Faith:
Faith isn't real until it touches our attitudes and, above all, our concrete choices. To "remain" in the word of Christ means to conform our lives with his life and his virtues, especially the virtue of charity, which is the very essence of Christian doctrine and morality. To "remain" in his word is, as some would say, "to walk the walk." In another passage we are told that it is not those who say "Lord, Lord…" who will enter the Kingdom, but only those who actually do the Father's will in their lives. Remaining in his word is the stuff of sanctity  it's also the stuff of daily perseverance and of knowing how to get up, dust ourselves off, and begin again each time we falter or fall along the way. How well do I "remain" in Christ's word? Could an impartial observer see from my attitudes and actions that I follow Christ?

2. A True Disciple Lives the Truth:
Christ seems to imply that there are true and false disciples. There is only one way to tell the difference between the two: whether one actually embraces his word not only as an ideal, but also as a rule of life. Today a plethora of voices, even within the Christian community, would have us follow a purely therapeutic Christianity  a form of Christianity in which we can supposedly believe in Christ while adopting behaviors or attitudes which are totally opposed to his way of discipleship as taught authoritatively by the Church. The temptation to separate faith and practice is never far from us. How much have these false voices impacted my own understanding of what it means to follow Christ as a member of his body, the Church?

3. Authentic Freedom:
The freedom promised by Christ to those who remain in his word is much deeper than the freedom offered by the world. Christ's freedom is not simply a political freedom. Neither is it the ability to choose whatever I want, when I want, and how I want. The freedom of Christ's disciple is spiritual, moral, and interior; it is the freedom for which every person longs in the depths of his heart. And only Christ gives this kind of freedom.

Conversation with Christ:
Thank you, Lord, for the freedom you have given me! With it I could
seek happiness in broken vessels of clay, forgetting you, the fountain
of living waters. You could have made me not free.... But thus you
have created me, and I want to be free. I want to know how to be
free. I want to demonstrate that I am free, with the most sovereign act
of my freedom: Lord, since I am free, I give my freedom, my will,
to you, so that your will may be done.

Resolution:
I will exercise my freedom responsibly, as Christ would have me do.