Prisoners of God

Extract

With the last war fresh in our minds, we are accustomed to think of prisoners as harshly treated victims of international disorder or unwilling captives of social justice. But here in St Paul we find a famous preacher rejoicing in his bonds, glad to be fettered since these chains set free the Word of God. Because he is in captivity other apostles have gone forth with greater boldness to proclaim the Gospel, while from the fertile mind and burning heart of the imprisoned apostle issue the glowing words of some of his finest epistles. Even today there are many who are willing to be prisoners for God, to 'wear chains in the Lord's service' (Eph. 4, 1. Knox version). Urged by their love of God and of souls, contemplative religious gladly disappear behind the bars in an enclosed Order. Captives indeed in a material sense, spiritually bound yet further by their three solemn vows, they experience the true freedom of the children ot God. The willing holocaust of their lives can be seen as reparation for the atrocities, committed against the unwilling victims of modern warfare and those bound under the tyranny of totalitarian rule. The glory of their lives is best described by St Thomas in the second part of the Summa: 'Those are called religious … who give themselves up entirely to the divine service as offering a holocaust to God'. 'Now the perfection of man consists & adhering wholly to God' (Ila-IIae, 187, 1).