It is written in the prophets, “And they shall all be taught by God.” Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. (John 6:45)

In my text of last Thursday, I spoke to you about Peace, in a perspective of faith, being seen as a certitude that Love in person is there in spite of our various feelings, emotions and psychological distress. I had given you the biblical image that for me refers to it best, that is to say that Love is at our side whether we walk on calm waters or on waters in perpetual storms.

This week, I really wanted to talk about freedom in order to help us use this time of confinement to tune in to the radio set rather than just remain listening only to the CD that we can no longer listen to as usual. In order to be able to talk about freedom in the perspective of the resurrection, I have to talk about Jesus’ identity. I know… I’m going to go a bit far, but the Easter liturgy confirms something great… Jesus is indeed the Son of God. He is completely human in the sense that He lived, died and suffered His passion, but He is above all the one He said He was… the Son of God.

I have often been impressed by the freedom that Jesus lived with regard to the gaze of others and especially with regard to the gaze of the Jewish authorities, of the Jewish law. Why did some looks, some words did not matter to him, did not reach him while others did? Where did this freedom come from? Because all looks and words matter to me and reach me and I feel much more oppressed and dependent on them than free! One day I understood that what made Jesus truly free was that He knew his identity. That is what allowed Him to respond to His vocation which was to Love without borders, to incarnate Love in word and deed, to show us a more just and adjusted face of who His Father, our Father, is.

So I went to his school.

To learn how to tune in to the radio set.

What if I tried, in this time of confinement, to ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to me my identity… who I am in the eyes of the Father… in what way I am loved? What if I tried to be in direct line and to act to please this look of Love? Can I, like Jesus, honor my tradition by responding to these inspirations that are maturing within me? Does this gaze that calls me out of my comfort zone, to create new points of reference for myself, allow me to love, in a perfectly imperfect way, without borders, and to incarnate Love in word and deed so as to show others a new face of the Father? If Jesus has done this, if my real desire is to follow Him and I have given Him authority over my life… normally that should be all right, shouldn’t it?

Anxious? I understand… the early Christians were, too. Then don’t forget that in the perspective of faith, Peace is the certainty that Love in person accompanies us. To respond to its vocation is to become what we were created for, thought, reflected upon, and it is not to enter into a framework. Each one of us has a personal and personalized call that unites and uses all that is already in us.

— Marie Lyne Boucher