20151022 USE YOUR BODY FOR WORKS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS
Readings at Mass
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First reading
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Romans 6:12-18 ©
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You must not let sin
reign in your mortal bodies or command your obedience to bodily passions, you
must not let any part of your body turn into an unholy weapon fighting on the
side of sin; you should, instead, offer yourselves to God, and consider
yourselves dead men brought back to life; you should make every part of your
body into a weapon fighting on the side of God; and then sin will no longer
dominate your life, since you are living by grace and not by law.
Does the
fact that we are living by grace and not by law mean that we are free to sin?
Of course not. You know that if you agree to serve and obey a master you become
his slaves. You cannot be slaves of sin that leads to death and at the same
time slaves of obedience that leads to righteousness. You were once slaves of
sin, but thank God you submitted without reservation to the creed you were
taught. You may have been freed from the slavery of sin, but only to become
‘slaves’ of righteousness.
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Psalm
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Psalm 123:1-8 ©
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Our help is in the
name of the Lord.
‘If the Lord had not
been on our side,’
this is
Israel’s song.
‘If the Lord had not
been on our side
when men
rose up against us,
then would they have
swallowed us alive
when
their anger was kindled.
Our help is in the
name of the Lord.
‘Then would the
waters have engulfed us,
the
torrent gone over us;
over our head would
have swept
the
raging waters.’
Blessed be the Lord
who did not give us
a prey to
their teeth!
Our help is in the
name of the Lord.
Our life, like a
bird, has escaped
from the
snare of the fowler.
Indeed the snare has
been broken
and we
have escaped.
Our help is in the
name of the Lord,
who made
heaven and earth.
Our help is in the
name of the Lord.
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Gospel
Acclamation
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Jn10:27
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Alleluia, alleluia!
The sheep that belong
to me listen to my voice,
says the Lord,
I know them and they
follow me.
Alleluia!
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Or
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Mt24:42,44
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Alleluia, alleluia!
Stay awake and stand
ready,
because you do not
know the hour
when the Son of Man
is coming.
Alleluia!
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Gospel
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Luke 12:39-48 ©
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Jesus said to his
disciples:
‘You may
be quite sure of this, that if the householder had known at what hour the
burglar would come, he would not have let anyone break through the wall of his
house. You too must stand ready, because the Son of Man is coming at an hour
you do not expect.’
Peter
said, ‘Lord, do you mean this parable for us, or for everyone?’ The Lord
replied, ‘What sort of steward, then, is faithful and wise enough for the
master to place him over his household to give them their allowance of food at
the proper time? Happy that servant if his master’s arrival finds him at this
employment. I tell you truly, he will place him over everything he owns. But as
for the servant who says to himself, “My master is taking his time coming,” and
sets about beating the menservants and the maids, and eating and drinking and
getting drunk, his master will come on a day he does not expect and at an hour
he does not know. The master will cut him off and send him to the same fate as
the unfaithful.
The
servant who knows what his master wants, but has not even started to carry out
those wishes, will receive very many strokes of the lash. The one who did not
know, but deserves to be beaten for what he has done, will receive fewer
strokes. When a man has had a great deal given him, a great deal will be
demanded of him; when a man has had a great deal given him on trust, even more
will be expected of him.’
USE
YOUR BODY FOR WORKS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS
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We are
a unique class of creatures. We are neither pure spirits nor pure flesh
like animals. As spirit, we are given the possibility of communion with
God, using our intellect and will. As flesh, we can enjoy the things of
creation. The angels and spirits cannot enjoy creation as we do.
Animals cannot commune with God and share in His life and love as we do,
consciously and freely. So it seems we have the best of both worlds; the
world of the spirit and the world of matter.
Yet,
this great gift from God is also the cause of our tension. On one hand, we long
for God and yearn for Him like a thirsty deer panting for water. We know
our hearts cannot rest until we rest in Him. On the other hand, our body
longs for the things of this world. Being physical, we are also carnal and
sensual. We long to be loved and touched. We express the spirit in
us through the body, which is the medium of our communication of the
soul. We also long to enjoy the things of this world. In itself,
there is no problem, so long as the soul and the body are in harmony, mutually
expressing each other without losing the delicate balance.
However,
because of our share in the fallen nature of Adam, sin has entered into our
lives, in our bodies and dwells in us. St Paul makes it clear many times
that sin lives in us. Only because sin lives in us, we are overcome by
the sin of the flesh. This makes us helpless and vulnerable in the face of
sin. No matter how much we try to overcome the sin of the flesh, our
greed and fear will overtake us. “Now if I do what I do not want to do,
it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.”(Rom 7:20) Today’s first reading also
hints at this division, when Jesus spoke of the division on account of Him that
is taking place in our very lives even within the family. He said, “Do
you suppose that I am here to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but
rather division. For now on a household of five will be divided:
three against two and two against three; the father divided against the son,
son against father, mother against daughter, daughter against mother,
mother-in-law against daughter-in-law, daughter-in-law against
mother-in-law.” External division is but the reflection of the division in
the heart of man because he is torn between doing good and doing evil.
So if
we were to overcome sin, what must we do? Firstly, it presupposes that we
have given ourselves to Jesus. The division and helplessness in us can
only be overcome by the Spirit of Christ dwelling in us. We are powerless
against sin because sin lives in us. For this reason, St Paul’s doctrine
of Justification by Faith rather than by the Law can only be understood in the
background of his personal experience of the unconditional love and mercy of
Christ who not only forgave him for his sins but even chose him to be His
apostle to the gentiles. Baptism, which is our response to our experience
of Christ’s gratuitous love is therefore a necessary prerequisite to overcome
the power of sin. Being baptized in Christ is the expression of our desire to
be sanctified in Christ, and a deliberate stand against sin. Without the
grace of Christ that comes from baptism, we will not be able to control the
passion in our body, the sin of concupiscence. This is because our body
will weaken the resolve of the spirit to do the right thing. Jesus
reminded His disciples at the Garden of Gethsemane that the spirit is willing
but the flesh is weak. The psalmist, and particularly St Paul, warns us of
the danger of self-reliance. “Blessed are they who hope in the
Lord. Not so the wicked, not so; they are like chaff which the wind
drives away. For the Lord watches over the way of the just, but the way of the
wicked vanishes.”
Unfortunately,
although many are ritually baptized in Christ, they have only accepted Him
nominally as the Savior as they have not truly experienced the heights and
depths of God’s love in Christ. Without an experience of His passionate love on
the cross and the power of His resurrection and fire of the Holy Spirit in our
lives, it would be difficult for anyone to surrender himself or herself totally
to the Lord.
Secondly,
instead of using our body for evil and immorality, we must now use it for good
works. St Paul wrote, “If I may use human terms to help your natural
weakness: as once you put your bodies at the service of vice and immorality, so
now you must put them at the service of righteousness for your
sanctification.” We must realize that freed from the Evil One, we are now
slaves of God. We belong to Him alone and not to sin. “Now,
however, you have been set free from sin, you have been made slaves of
God.” The freedom from sin is never an end itself. We are given
freedom by Christ so that we can be free for love which is to be free for God
and for others. Quite often, freedom is understood by the world as
freedom for self, to live a life of self-centeredness and individualism.
No one can be said to be free if he or she is not free for the service of others.
True freedom is when we are capable of altruistic and unconditional love. That
is why a Christian uses his body for love and service of others rather than for
self. This is the freedom that Jesus has given to us. Only those
who give up their personal freedom for Christ, that is, given up their egoistic
will for God’s will, will find true peace and joy. Hence, Christian freedom is
in reality to be slaves of God since living a life of God is what, as St Paul
says, gives “a reward leading to your sanctification and ending in eternal
life.”
Worldly
freedom leads not just to death but eternal death, whereas freedom in Christ
leads to eternal life. St Paul writes about the consequences of sin that
leads to the death of the soul: “when you were slaves of sin, you felt no
obligation to righteousness, and what did you get from this? Nothing but
experiences that now make you blush, since that sort of behaviour ends in
death.” However, if we choose the life of grace then the reward is
eternal life. “For the wage paid by sin is death; the present given by God is
eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Thirdly,
to overcome evil, we must overcome it indirectly by doing good. Fighting
against evil directly does not always bring success. It is just like the
sin of judgementalism. When we do not like a person, we only tend to see
the flaws and failures of that person. And the more we focus on the
person’s weakness, our dislike and even hatred of that person grows. What
we should be doing is to exercise our will deliberately to try to pick up the
goodness in that particular person whom we do not like. If we keep
focusing on his or her goodness, and pay particular attention to his or her
positive qualities, quite soon, we begin to actually like the person more and
more. As a consequence, we are able to overlook the few flaws he or she
has.
This
principle of overcoming evil with good is taught by Jesus and St Paul
himself. In the gospel, Jesus tells us to overcome evil with good. “You
have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your
enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute
you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. (Mt 5:38-45) Similarly, St Paul exhorts us, “Bless
those who persecute you; bless and do not curse … Do not repay anyone evil
for evil … Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s
wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the
Lord. On the contrary: ‘If your enemy is hungry,
feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In
doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.’ Do not be overcome
by evil, but overcome evil with good.” (Rom 12:14, 17-21)
Proactively,
overcoming sin and evil requires that we walk the way of the Lord. We
cannot hope to grow in holiness without first taking a step to come closer to
the Lord. This is what the psalmist is asking of us. He said,
“Blessed are they who hope in the Lord. Blessed the man who follows not the
counsel of the wicked, nor walks in the way of sinners, nor sits in the company
of the insolent.” We must find the right friends to mix with so
that we can walk the path of holiness. Many Catholics unfortunately do
not have good Catholic friends in their lives. They have no one to lead
them or mentor them in their spiritual life. To walk closer to the Lord,
we must, as the psalmist invites us, walk the path of the blessed. It is
therefore necessary for those of us who are serious in our spiritual life to
find friends who are spiritually mature so that they can be guided and
influenced to do good.
Growing
in holiness and walking in the light of the Lord entails meditation on the Word
of God as the psalmist encourages us, “Blessed the man who… delights in the law
of the Lord and meditates on his law day and night.” There is no way for
us to overcome sin if we do not reflect and pray the Word daily. Only by
prayerfully reading and meditating on the Word of God, can we be enlightened in
the truth, inspired by His wisdom and strengthened by His assurance of love to
carry on in our struggle against sin in our lives. Indeed, in the warfare
against sin, we need to cling on to Jesus tightly if we want to win the
battle. The responsorial psalm says, “Blessed are they who hope in the
Lord. He is like a tree planted near running water, that yields its fruit in
due season, and whose leaves never fade. Whatever he does, prospers.”
Written
by The Most Rev William Goh
Roman
Catholic Archbishop of Singapore
© All Rights Reserved
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