Category: Morality

Can the Middle-Class Be Saved?

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 40 Leave a Comment on %s
  Speaking to His disciples, Christ said, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” (Mk. 10:25) Doubtless, most modern Christians take comfort from the fact that they are not rich. Over the centuries, the eyes of needles seem to have grown, while camels have gotten thinner. At the time, the disciples were astonished at…

The Ladder of Your Daily Life

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 44 Leave a Comment on %s
Perhaps the most prominent ladder in our culture is the one associated with careers. It is an image of the American road to success. We begin at or near the bottom and, step by step, make our way towards the top. It is a metaphor that works well with our modern notions of hard work, persistence and reward. It also serves as a justification for many of the structures in our society…

A Secular Kingdom…Where Christmas Never Comes

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 32 Leave a Comment on %s
  Two people are working at a soup kitchen, feeding the poor. One of them is a Christian, the other an atheist. The Christian is doing what he does out of obedience to Christ, in order to serve Christ “in the least of these my brethren.” The atheist is doing what he does because he thinks that generosity is a good thing and that the world would be a better place if…

Of Kings and Things and What Matters

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 66 Leave a Comment on %s
On October 25, 1415 (St. Crispin’s Day), the army of King Henry V of England engaged the army of Charles VI of France at Agincourt, in Northern France. The battle was famously depicted in Shakespeare’s Henry V. Estimates say that as many as 10,000 Frenchmen died, while as few as 112 Englishmen perished (the numbers reported vary somewhat). Henry’s speech before the battle is classic: And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,…

Be True to Yourself

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 108 Leave a Comment on %s
I recall the excitement that I felt every year as a child and as a teenager as the signs of summer’s end came. Looming ahead was the beginning of a new school year. It never felt like a return to what I had known the year before, but as an opportunity for something new. In my teen years, the secret something new that felt exciting was a “new” me. Of course, that…

Before the Judgment Seat of Christ

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 27 Leave a Comment on %s
  For a Christian ending to our life: painless, unashamed, and peaceful; and a good defense before the dread judgment seat of Christ, let us ask of the Lord. From my childhood, I have memories of the phrase, “Great White Throne of Judgment.” It comes complete with an abundance of frightening images and threats. It is the last possible moment before all hell breaks loose and the preachers at long last get…

Humble and Meek and Middle-Class Morality

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 50 Leave a Comment on %s
  “He Will Exalt the Humble and Meek” There is an interesting historical pattern that has been repeated any number of times across the centuries. A group of the dispossessed and the poor come together within a religious movement. What begins with great enthusiasm succeeds. As it succeeds, those who were once poor and dispossessed manage to gather themselves into some sort of order. They learn to work hard, to avoid disaster,…

The Truth of the Soul

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 42 Leave a Comment on %s
“Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving, forever?” In the classic film, The Third Man, Harry Lime, a racketeer in post-War Vienna, quizzes his old friend, Holly Martins, about the value of an individual life. They are standing in the carriage of a Ferris wheel, looking down on the city scape. From Lime’s perspective, the distance provides a detachment that makes morality obsolete. “Have you ever…

The Work that Saves

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 53 Leave a Comment on %s
“Do not be careless. Pray as much as you can – more frequently and more fervently. Prod yourself – force yourself to do so, for the Kingdom of God is taken by force. You will never attain it without forcing yourself.” ~ Saint Innocent of Alaska Do we cooperate in our salvation? Do our efforts make a difference? These questions lie at the heart of a centuries-old religious debate in Christianity. Classically,…

Shame in the Public Arena

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 25 Leave a Comment on %s
In 401 AD, twenty-nine Saxon “slaves,” strangled each other to death with their bare hands in their prison cells. They chose this death rather than being forced to fight one another in Rome’s arena. Better death than shame. Their “owner,” the Senator Symmachus (famously known as the “Last Pagan”), wrote of them that they were a rebellious “band of slaves, worse than any Spartacus.” In the pages of the New Testament we…