RBWords

     St. Paul's Letter to the Galatians is one of his most impassioned pieces of writing.  It is important when reading/hearing passages from this letter to understand that he is replying to critics of his preaching and to those who were claiming that observance of the Mosaic Law is essential to faith in Christ.  When Paul was converted to faith in Jesus, he began to see all that he had learned as a Pharisee in the light of his new experience.  This is why he is appealing not to the covenant of Moses on Mount Sinai but to an earlier covenant, the one God made with Abraham!  He began to see the requirements of much of the Mosaic Law at best as a disciplinary measure to prepare for the coming of the Messiah and at worst as a form of slavery.  The Mosaic Law could be something good, but it was not to be seen as something that saved a person.  There were preachers who came to the Galatian community after Paul had left there and were trying to impose the Mosaic Law on the new converts.  Paul is fighting back!

     The power of the line that I excerpted above shines through Paul's interpretation of Genesis and its application to the Galatian situation, but it also shines through to our own day.  What forms of "slavery" are we tempted in our time to accept under the disguise that they are God-given and necessary?  Are certain historical liturgical expressions or traditional theological statements to be imposed when it is clear that they reflect not so much the faith but our well-intentioned efforts at a given time in the past to express the faith?  Indeed, those manners of expression and ways of saying things that WE are developing at this time may not serve well a hundred (or even less) years from now.  Although we recite the Nicene Creed (or, alternatively, the Apostles Creed) at Sunday liturgy, Pope Paul VI proposed a creed after the Second Vatican Council that is occasionally used for professions of faith.  The "deposit of faith," as Pope John XXIII, needs expression that respects the tradition but is not a "slave" to its historical expressions.  For example, to be faithful to the achievements and meaning of the American Revolution and the Constitution does not mean that we have to dress like George Washington or Thomas Jefferson and speak the way they did.  We would rightly protest the imposition of such things on our freedom that they fought to preserve.  The same is true in matters of religious faith.  It is the role of the pope and the bishops to be the official interpreters of Catholic tradition, but we must trust that they know the difference between the vestments and the creed or between the language and the truth that language tries to profess.  

     The 50th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council, and the New Evangelization synod, should prompt all of us from pope to pew person to be alert to the power of Paul's protest!  AMEN