By Sister Doreen, SSJD
In the Anglican Church of Canada, Freedom Sunday 2026 is on February 22. This annual event is a time for reflection, prayer, and action to address the issue of human trafficking and modern slavery. It comes on the Sunday following Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent.
Ash Wednesday is a symbolic occasion of reflection and prayer, reminding people of their mortality and sorrow for sins, as well as the will for change and the hope of forgiveness.
Both occasions focus on deliverance, rescue, and recovery, and are a time to think about life and death, as well as reflect on life’s choices and possible life directions. They serve as a wake-up call and a time of goodwill for many people.
There is in every heart, I believe, an ache for freedom, and the greatest gift we can give to this ache is both our frailty and our splendour. When considering freedom, we often tend to focus on what hinders us from acting freely. But I believe that both days, Freedom Sunday and Ash Wednesday, ask us to distinguish between freedom from and freedom for – while important parts of the same coin, today it seems to me that there is an important question to focus on: What do we want to use our freedom for?
These are days when we long for, ache for, something that contributes to our full, unhampered development, for everyone and for everything. In one sense, these days offer a gift – the call to trust life more than our own ideas and plans. David Steindl-Rast in his book “You Are Here” writes: “what truly makes us free is a thorough listening to the guidance of life moment by moment and ‘guidance’ in this sense means the way fine dancers lead their partners. This shows that ‘freedom from’ refers primarily to everything that hinders us to trust in the guidance of life. Eternal circumstances, no matter how limiting they may appear to our sense of freedom, are nevertheless gifts of Life, and Life always has our full and healthy development for its goal. If the goal of ‘freedom for’ is self-development through trust in life, ‘freedom from’ must focus on the inner obstacles against that trust: fear.”
As I was reflecting upon these days and the ideas above, Dag Hammarskjold’s quote also came to my ponderings: “For all that has been, thanks. For all that shall be yes.” He goes on to say that saying Yes to life is at one and the same time to say Yes to oneself. Yes – even to that element in one which is most unwilling to let itself be transformed from a temptation into a strength. He says: “Openness to life grants a lightning-swift insight into the life situation of others. What is necessary? – to wrestle with your problem until its emotional discomfort is clearly conceived in an intellectual form – and then to act accordingly.”
One of the great truths that binds these days together is an idea in a book that Macrina Wiederkehr mentions in her book “A Tree Full of Angels” – it is a book written long ago by Raoul Plus called “Dust, Remember Thou Art Splendour”. Both Father Raoul and Macrina believe that there is in each of us a hidden treasure. In our littleness there is greatness, there is splendour – it is about seeing the holy in the ordinary, inherent goodness at the heart of all creation. With this foundational understanding – I believe that these days, Freedom Sunday and Ash Wednesday, call us to say, “Yes to life, in spite of everything.”
Perhaps Thomas Merton’s quote is worth some pondering: “Make ready for God, whose smile like lightning, sets free the song of everlasting glory that now sleeps, in your paper flesh, like dynamite.”
Freedom Sunday and Ash Wednesday at their heart both say to us – Choice, choose to be free, to be able to stand up and leave everything behind – without looking back. To say yes.
This is God’s desire for all of humankind and all of the cosmos. Today on both days, our task with humble hearts open to the unconditional and tenacious love of God is to know and to believe that we have been set free and now need to own that freedom for each other. It is a freedom born out of acknowledging that each of us is a “great-littleness”, loved and made precious as God’s own. When we can see in each other that holy spark of God, freedom is the goal to which we will actively work.
Dag Hammerskjold wrote: ‘In a dream I walked with God through the deep places of creation; past walls that receded and gates that opened, through hall after hall of silence, darkness and refreshing warmth – until, around me, was an infinity into which we all flowed together and lived anew, like the rings made by raindrops falling upon wide expanses of calm dark waters.”
Today I challenge myself and I challenge you, that while this may seem like an impossible dream, it is not an impossible dream. Freedom – that full and unhampered development of who I am – for all people everywhere and for all the whole cosmos. Indeed in the words of part of the service for Ash Wednesday “Accomplish in us, O God, the work of your salvation, that we may show forth your glory in the world.”
Some of the words of Joe Darian’s lyrics from the Man of La Mancha which I have repeated before, I think need repeating here:
“To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go
To right the unrightable wrong
To love pure and chaste from afar
To try when your arms are too weary
To reach the unreachable star…”
This is my quest, to follow that star no mater how hopeless, no matter how far.
To fight for the right without question or pause, to be willing to march into Hell for a heavenly cause.
Freedom, wholeness, new life for all – strengthen us in all goodness, God of all faithfulness.
Yes! Yes! “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon you” Isaiah 60:1.