It is a very real possibility that people, as a group or as individuals can come to a point of believing that freedom and justice are impossible.

Emancipation Day, which we celebrate this week, is not only a reminder of how this possibility already became reality (via slavery) but also of the fact that many people have that same sense of hopelessness today.

Emancipation Day commemorates the abolition of slavery. This year as the world marks the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade, the observance of the Day ought to take on special significance.

It is an opportunity to remember those who died never knowing freedom – and in chains. Some never gave up hope. It is important too, to recall those who – within and outside of the system – fought to bring it to an end.

Any observance of Emancipation Day, however, has to reckon with the fact that slavery is alive in many forms in our world and still threatens and entraps us here at home. Without downplaying African slavery and its impact on our nation, this Day must push us to consider those current situations in which persons are forced to live or work in degrading conditions, with a loss of the dignity that is rightly theirs as human beings.

Among the modern forms of slavery, the Church identifies prostitution. In a document published in May this year, “Guidelines for the Pastoral Care of the Road”, the Pontifical Council that oversees the Church’s work with migrants and itinerant people points to a dramatic rise in the number of prostitutes in the world “due to a set of complex economic, social and cultural reasons”.

The Council notes that victims of prostitution are subject to exploitation and violence and, in some cases, fall prey to men who “seek out prostitutes for an experience of total domination and control over a woman”.

Winning and protecting freedom

Violence, abuse, fear, low self-esteem, lack of opportunities are all telltale signs of slavery in one form or another. This country’s observance of Emancipation Day offers the Church, which has been called to proclaim the Good News of liberation for all humanity in Jesus Christ, an opportunity to join with the national community in thanking God for the freedom that now exists in the land. The task of winning freedom and protecting freedoms already won is ongoing and requires trust in God.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus teaches his disciples about the value of persistence and invites them to ask, search and to knock; to make their requests known to the Father who will give them the mysterious Holy Spirit that knows what is necessary in every situation.

Many citizens have come to believe that lawlessness, unsolved crime and corruption are inescapable features of national life. Emancipation Day, in its fullest implications, must give and restore hope to those who despair and encourage citizens of goodwill to persevere in the search for justice and equality.

The Christian believer gets his or her perspective from the victory already won through Jesus’ death on the cross.

This Sunday’s Second Reading sums it up this way: “You have been buried with Christ, when you were baptised; and by baptism, too, you have been raised up with him through your belief in the power of God who raised him from the dead …He has overridden the Law, and cancelled every record of the debt that we had to pay; he has done away with it by nailing it to the cross.”