Weekly Franciscan reflections
Start every week here, with a Franciscan reflection on what the Gospel, St. Francis, and biblical stories offer to us that we can bring forward into our daily life.
Reflection for week of August 4th, 2025
When we miss the mark: freedom and sin
Freedom is a tremendous gift. Societies in the West are generally founded on principles of individual freedom. Those principles are rooted even more deeply in the freedom offered to us by God – our free will.
Free will means that we are able to choose the paths we will take in life and the actions we will perform. God gave us free will because without freedom, we would be unable to love. Love is a moral choice, and we must have freedom to choose it. When we love, we imitate God.
Freedom comes with a catch, which is that we are also able to make choices that are selfish, not loving. To love means “to will the good of the other.” When we choose our own good over that of another, we misuse our freedom. If a choice we make violates one of God’s moral laws, it is called sin.
The word “sin” means “to miss the mark” – what a great way to understand it. When we sin, we miss the mark that God has set for us to hit; namely, to act with love. Both our faith and our experience tell us that sin is real. Each of us “misses the mark” sometimes and need forgiveness by Our Creator. Thankfully, He is always willing to offer it.
Often in our modern world, we encounter the concept that there is no such thing as sin. This week, let us explore God’s forgiveness by accepting the reality of sin, and the freedom of choice we have in all moral matters.
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