Sure: the powers that be might slander me and drag me before kings and princes and imprison me, have me tortured and put to death. So? Have they taken my liberty? No. No they haven’t. Jesus will NOT let anyone rip me away from His unstoppable grip on my heart and soul and mind. No one else can take my liberty in Him who freely let Himself be nailed fast to the cross for our sake, standing in our place, the Innocent for the guilty.
We all have the liberty, the freedom to stand with the Son of God, the Son of Man, Christ our God, and retain that freedom of Love and of Truth and of Life that is eternal. We are free to be as happy, joyous, blessed as the beatitudes would have us be. And that, my friends, is a great freedom that no one can take away.
No worldly battle, nothing that evil men can come up with, nothing that Satan can devise, is enough to rip us out of the very Heart of our Lord. We might take a hit from a soldier’s spear when we are in that Sacred Heart, which was pierced through, but it’s a privilege to witness to Jesus, Christ our God, unto death, unto life. Blessed are they who… So…
Bwahahahahahaha!
I don’t laugh because I am strong or virtuous or not a sinner or whatever. I laugh because Jesus is my strength. I’m with Him. I praise Him as my Savior. And you? He will come to judge the living and the dead and world by fire. Amen.
ARISE! LET US BE GOING! 
Lord Jesus, thank you for this priest who encourages us with the battle cry that I pray will stay in our hearts. Our will is nothing without You. Brings a new understanding to me, when the priest prays “Through Him, with Him and in Him….”
Wondering what ancient personage the pictured statue portrayed, I asked my son and carer and he said, “Leonidas I of Sparta”, and he explained the connection with what you had written. How the tables have turned. I homeschooled him and the history I taught was what I thought was important. He took it from there and followed his interests, which are somewhat different to mine, and now he is educating me.