Fr. Timothy Vaverek: Realizing that Jesus Christ came to set us free

“Jesus is calling us in this life, not just in the life to come, to throw off the disorder and the resulting evil — whether it's through our ignorance or through our deliberate sin — to throw that all off and come to stand upright. Don't go around crouched and bent over and twisted — and then: oh, we're going to accommodate you so you can walk around in that kind of distorted way.

"No. We have to stand up, walk on our two feet. And that transition from being twisted around — it's like physical therapy. It's painful for us. But it sets us free,” said Fr. Timothy V. Vaverek, STD, a parish priest in the archdiocese of Austin, Tex.

Vaverek is the author of “As I Have Loved You: Rediscovering Our Salvation in Christ” (Emmaus Road Publishing) and whose recent articles for The Catholic Thing include "Accompanying Those Innocently in Error” and “Of Sin and 'Mitigated Culpability.'”