14 Sunday in Ordinary Time A.  July 3, 2011.  Our Lady of Grace 11:30, 6:30.  Zechariah 9:9-10.  Romans 8:9, 11-13.   Matthew 11:25-30.

A five year old little boy watched with great excitement as his three day old sister entered his family home for the first time.  The little boy said that he wanted to be alone with his new sister for a while.  His parents were very suspicious; they were afraid that he was jealous and wanted to hurt the new baby.  Finally they gave in and allowed the little boy to be with his sister alone.  They stood very close to the doorway to see what was about to happen.  The little boy knelt before his sister’s crib and put his face very close to hers.  He said, “Please tell me what it is like to be a new baby again – I am only five but I am beginning to forget what it was like when everything is new. I’ve seen snow, I’ve seen Christmas, and I’ve seen the lake. I have even been to kindergarten.  Tell me what it is like to be a baby again before I grow up and forget.”  Seeing the world through the eyes of a child helps us create and enter into a world that we have never seen before. Older people often have tired eyes and tired hearts.  It is hard to create something new when you are sure that you have seen it all already.  When we have gotten used to seeing things in a certain way it is very hard to see things differently.  Yet, we can all be young again!

Our ancestors came to this land well formed in what government was like.  Most of them came here to get away from one form of government or another.  In the “Old World” all governments were pretty much the same.  There was a king of some kind, there was an important royal or ruling class to which some few people were lucky enough to belong, usually by birth, and everyone else was a worker with little influence politically and little wealth and prosperity. That is the way things were and all that most people in the American Colonies could hope for was a better King than the current British king.

The founders of our country looked at their situation with the new eyes of little children.  They saw something that had been hinted at by teachers like St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Robert Bellarmine and others – but these new ideas had never really been tested before. On July 4 1776 they said, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...”      The signers of the Declaration of Independence shook the “Old World” with three radical ideas. (1) All human beings are created equal.  God did not create a royal class and a lower class.  God created all human beings with an equal dignity. (2) All human being have rights that no one can take away.  Among the God-given rights of every human being are “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”  (3) That to secure the rights of equal people governments are formed.  Governments derive their authority from the consent of the people governed – not from the divine right of kings.  This new vision gave birth to a new nation in the “New World.”  The French Revolution would struggle with this new vision a few years later in a much more violent way.  The whole world has learned from the American vision of democracy as we Americans have struggled to live it ourselves down to the present and beyond.  The countries of the Middle East are struggling with human equality, human rights, and the authority of the people to govern themselves. We hear about it in the news every day.

The tyrant that we now struggle with as a free people is even more difficult to overcome.  The tyrant in modern America is found buried deep in our hearts.  St. Paul told the Romans, “You are not in the flesh; on the contrary you are in the spirit, if only the Spirit of God dwells in you. If the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the one who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also, through the Spirit that dwells in you.  Consequently brothers and sisters, we are not debtors to the flesh to live according to the flesh.  For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will love.”

The tyrant we struggle against is not a foreign king.  The tyrant is in us.  St. Paul calls our inner tyrant “the flesh.”   If we see the world through the eyes of the inner tyrant of our flesh we will die.  If we take just one example of “the flesh”, our sexuality, we will be able to see what St. Paul is talking about.   It is possible to look at sexuality in two ways.  The first is that of a lustful passion that dominates other aspects of life and reduces other people to objects of sexual desire.  Seen through the eyes of the flesh sexuality can be selfish, self-centered, abusive and destructive of human dignity.  Seen through the eyes of the Spirit sexuality can be a powerful gift allowing a person to give himself or herself to his or her spouse in marriage in faithfulness, in good days and bad, in sickness and in health for a lifetime.  Seen through the eyes of the Spirit sexuality is the powerful way that children are given to the world and raised within a stable family. Sexuality in itself is good.  Seeing our sexuality with the eyes of the flesh leads us to a vey empty and destructive way of living.  Seeing our sexuality with the eyes of the Spirit can lead us to joy and peace – and self sacrifice too – beyond anything we can image.

Jesus said, “Come to me all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest…for my yoke is easy, and my burden light.”  We see the world through the eyes of Jesus

To maintain and cultivate this great and God-given land that is our heritage each of us has to decide if we will submit to the inner tyrant of the flesh or, on the other hand,  invite the Spirit of Christ to guide and empower our hearts. Because we are a democracy, the war for independence and true spiritual freedom lies in the hearts of each of us.  For these United States we give God thanks and praise.