“It is for freedom that we have been set free.” Galatians 5:1. Pope John Paul II said that “freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought.”
In the History of the Israelites, even though they were given the Promised Land, they’ve spent very little time actually living in it. Most of their history has been lived in exile in one place or another away from their homeland; Egypt, Assyria, Babylon. Is this to be the fate of us Christians too?
Our Promised Land is that Place that Our Lord Jesus Christ has died to give us…yes…Heaven when we pass on…but also right here, right now. He declared that” The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand”.
Then how can we step into it?
We need to acknowledge exactly where we are at the moment and how far we are from it. After having been released from Egypt are we now stuck in a mirage somewhere in the middle of the Desert?
It requires a raw honesty with self, to fully grasp the fact that we can no longer stay in this place because it’s really not doing anything for us. It’s all smoke and mirrors. It’s fake pearls when the Lord is offering us the genuine deal.
The next step after that requires ‘poverty of spirit’. Realizing that our own ways have failed, and failed pretty miserably in some instances. So we have nothing that we can call ‘our own’.
We then become detached from that world of fakery. There’s nothing there that we want or need. When we can fully grasp this and come to acceptance, the Lord fills us with His Peace and Hope.
We are set forth on a mission to search for Truth, Beauty and Goodness and there is now something to live and die for.
Once this all takes place, He sets us on the path back to Zion and leads us forward step by step with His guidance and bestows us with His wisdom.
We have His Word and His Holy Spirit to direct us, His Church with its Sacraments to nourish us on this Journey and also His Mother to care for us. Mary and the Church epitomize Femininity as does Zion itself and show us what Truth, Beauty and Goodness are and what their function in the world needs to be.