Word to the Wise
Saturday, October 24, 2015 - Saturday in the 29th Week in Ordinary Time
[Rom 8:1-11 and Luke 13:1-9]If the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells n you,the one who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also, through his Spirit that dwells in you. [Romans]
Most of us give little thought to the fundamental ways in which we view the human person. We have opinions and attitudes that we inherit from our parents and other significant figures as well as from society at large, especially from the media. It probably would not occur to us that we get our basic understanding of the human person from the ancient Greeks and Romans. Does it matter? Given that it influences our daily decisions as well as the decisions of our secular governing bodies, I would say that it matters a lot.
In the passage from the Letter to the Romans, many of us living in the Western world would think in terms of the "Body and Soul" distinction. Therefore, when St. Paul speaks of living "according to the flesh" or "according to the Spirit," we would think in terms of two distinct forces at work, a bit like the two angels perched on opposite shoulders of the comedian Flip Wilson. This way of thinking also shows up in the way we view the human person after death. The body decays but the soul lives on. This is not the way St. Paul thought. [Cf. 1 Cor. 15:36-49]. He speaks from a Middle Eastern Semitic perspective which views the human person as a single reality. Those who accept Christ and the Spirit that continues his presence in our midst will live according to that presence. Those who do not accept this in faith may find themselves thinking only according to their appetites, whatever those may be. This becomes institutionalized in secularistic attitudes that relegate faith and religious expression to the realm of personal opinion rather than a shaping force of life together.
One challenge that i offer often to young people in the Sacrament of Reconciliation is the question, "Am I living the way I want people to remember me?" Do I make decisions according to the flesh, or according to the Spirit? Learning to see ourselves differently from the Greco-Roman approach can offer new possibilities for drawing closer to Christ. AMEN
config
view
logs
4096.0 KB
102 ms
4
