Slavery

One of my pastors, Monsignor Oliver Johnson, gives some of the best homilies I’ve ever heard. He’s a wonderful speaker and has the kindest heart, and his homilies definitively show it! Anyway, I remember the homily he gave around last Labor Day. He discussed that even though we live in a “free” society, many of us are still "slaves."

Many of us are "slaves" to corporate America. We get into a job that looks nice from the outside, but once you’re in, many of your liberties are taken away. You are no longer allowed to celebrate holidays… you are no longer allowed to be sick… you are no longer allowed to have time to yourself… you are always on call… you don’t know what you’re schedule will be from one day to another… you must set aside morals and ethics to survive… you have no guarantee that you’ll have your job next week… your success lies on how much your superiors like you, rather than your skills, work-ethic, or experience… you must accept the fact no matter how well you do, it doesn’t matter… you are a slave.

Fr. Oliver brings up a great point about one of the issues Christ faced with the Pharisees… the Pharisees accused Christ of not adhering to Mosaic Law (i.e. he would cure/heal people on the Sabbath, which was against the law.) Christ’s response to them was that people do not exist to serve the law, rather the law exists to serve the people. Any system developed by people exists to serve people, not the other way around!

Where did we go wrong in America? It seems as if we’re living as the Pharisees would have liked… we’re slaves to the systems that were designed to serve us.

Why do we sit by nonchalantly and allow corporations to enslave us? Why do we give them, the gov’t, and any other system this power? Unfortunately, the answer is fear. We are too afraid of anything and everything. We give these entities power over us because we believe they will protect us. What we fail to consider in doing this is the fact that these entities… these systems… these corporations… none of them are human! They lack emotion, compassion, moral integrity, etc. Most of all, they lack a soul and the capacity to love.

Is the only way to freedom "the way of the cross?"