RBWords

     In the writings of St. Paul, the use of the terms "flesh" and "Spirit" refer to a person who is baptized and converted or a person unbaptized and unconverted.  He gives us quite a list of what people do who are not living according to the Spirit they would receive in baptism.  Then he gives us a list of what should characterize a person who lives according to the Spirit.  It is the Spirit that motivates a person to avoid the works of the flesh, not the law of Moses or any other law for that matter.  If we avoid doing one of the actions in the list of the "flesh" simply because it is illegal, and not because it is contrary to the Spirit, what kind of integrity do we have?

     In the Gospel According to Matthew [7:15-20], Jesus warns the disciples about false teachers and says, "By their fruits you shall know them."  But this applies to all disciples today as well.  How much of our lives reflect those "fruits of the Spirit" in St. Paul's list today?  We may not engage in some of the more spectacular items in his "list of the flesh," ("immorality, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, rivalry, jealousy, outbursts of fury, acts of selfishness, dissensions, factions, occasions of envy, drinking bouts, orgies, and the like") but we might find "a little bit" of one or two of them lurking in us.  

     Christian faith is a summons to continual conversion in the midst of a secular society that will regard anything "legal" as "moral."  Christians are called to a much higher standard than that.  We will have an impact only if we can be known by the fruits of the Spirit manifested in our daily lives.  AMEN