A record number of people will tune in to watch the Superbowl this week.  Some tune in because they enjoy football, others because of fan loyalties but some choose to watch the game just so that they can see the commercials that will be played during the breaks.  Commercials are a big part of the whole Superbowl phenomenon.  Companies spend millions of dollars for less than a minute of exposure on Superbowl Sunday.  All of these commercials are directed towards one thing – affecting your choice.  Companies know that you have choices to make and they want to encourage you to choose their product.  The commercials on Superbowl Sunday can get very creative because they want to influence you to make choices that you might not normally make.  The messages of their ads are basically giving you permission to indulge your desires and pleasures.  They are basically offering you license to spend, overindulge and even to sin.  All of their products represent a certain freedom to us, a freedom to choose a way of life.  A sense of freedom is offered to us but not responsibility.

     Choices.  Every day we are faced with countless choices.  What we choose and how we choose determines the course of our lives.  There is tremendous power in our human ability to choose.  At times choices determine the course of history.  One choice can open up the way to life and another choice can result in death.  For world leaders the choices that they make can have tremendous consequences for the future of their people.  There is a tremendous amount of responsibility that goes along with freedom.  There is always a great hope among the people that their leaders will choose the good and consider the common good of all people.

     In a reading from the Book of Sirach, the wisdom writer speaks to us about our choices before God.  “Before man are life and death, good and evil, whichever he chooses shall be given him.” (Sir 15,17)  Freedom is a gift and a natural right that is given to human persons.  We have the freedom to determine the course of our lives, either for life or death, for good or evil.  We have the power to shape our lives with our choices.  The Catechism tells us, “God created man a rational being, conferring on him the dignity of a person who can initiate and control his own actions.  God willed that man should be ‘left in the hand of his own counsel,’ so that he might of his own accord seek his Creator and freely attain his full and blessed perfection by cleaving to him.”  (CCC 1730)  Freedom must be exercised with proper responsibility.  “Freedom is the power, rooted in reason and will, to act or not to act, to do this or that, and so to perform deliberate actions on one’s own responsibility.  By free will one shapes one’s own life.  Human freedom is a force for growth and maturity in truth and goodness; it attains its perfection when directed toward God, our beatitude.” (CCC 1731)

     The Catechism also affirms that “There is no true freedom except in the service of what is good and just.  The choice to disobey and do evil is an abuse of freedom and leads to “the slavery of sin.”” (CCC 1733)  Sirach reminds us that, “No one does he command to act unjustly, to none does he give license to sin.” (Sir 15,20)  God encourages us through his commandments to use our freedom properly and to perfect the gifts that he has given us by choosing life, truth and goodness.  The commandments of God are always directed towards justice and goodness.  God never commands us to act unjustly or to sin.  To seek and choose the will of God in all things, to discern with the help of his Spirit what is God’s will helps us to grow in freedom.  Jesus leads us deeper into the commandments of God by revealing to us the true sense of God’s will to love and compassion that is the foundation of each commandment.  The law of Christ not only engages our rational mind but also our heart.  God intends to write his commandments on our hearts.

     Madison Avenue might want to give you a license to sin and to choose indiscriminately without considering responsibility.  God would never give you a license to sin but always encourages us to strive to be our best self and to perfect our freedom through responsible choice.  Freedom is not a license to sin.  Choose life, choose good, choose to be God’s holy people and you will have an abundant and blessed life.