Father Jeffrey Kirby: 4th of July Reflection: Freedom’s Fragile Reality

By Father Jeffrey Kirby, EWTN News, July 1, 2024

Father Jeffrey Kirby is the pastor of Our Lady of Grace parish in Indian Land, South Carolina, and the host of the daily devotional podcast Morning Offering With Father Kirby.

COMMENTARY: If we want the U.S. to grow and prosper and continue to be ‘the land of the free and the home of the brave,’ then a mature freedom and a sound moral sense must be fully retrieved and put into public practice.

Independence Day is an opportunity for every citizen, and especially Christian citizens, to pause and remind ourselves of some of the critical lessons at the heart of virtuous living and representative government.

Growing up as the son of an American soldier, I spent a lot of my childhood in what was then West Germany. We were in Germany as a part of the Allied commitment to protect democracy in Western Europe. It was the 1980s, and things fluctuated from intense to severe.

From the many experiences that came from living in Cold War Germany, there were certain lessons that were regularly affirmed and became very clear in my young mind: Namely, freedom isn’t free, and good things are worth fighting for. The basis of these lessons came from a holistic view of the human person, which included an understanding of our dignity and an awareness and appreciation of our call to transcendence. …

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