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Sunday 19 May 2013

A short commentary on one of today's reading from Romans 8



People who are interested only in unspiritual things can never be pleasing to God. Your interests, however, are not in the unspiritual, but in the spiritual, since the Spirit of God has made his home in you. In fact, unless you possessed the Spirit of Christ you would not belong to him. Though your body may be dead it is because of sin, but if Christ is in you then your spirit is life itself because you have been justified; and if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, then he who raised Jesus from the dead will give life to your own mortal bodies through his Spirit living in you.

Too many Catholics are interested in unspiritual things. What are unspiritual things? Vacations, accumulation of wealth, hot cars, jewellry, fancy clothes, gourmet food, even family pride. Anything can hold us back and the false gospel of prosperity leads us away from the real life of penance and sacrifice which allows God to purify us so that the gifts can flow out from our souls into the world.

Heresy or any disobedience from the Church's teaching is a serious sin and blocks the gifts of the Holy Spirit. But, we can be raised from the dead, by turning from all sin, not merely mortal sin.

Are we wasting time, instead of praying? Are we gossiping? Are we not focused totally on Christ?

  So then, my brothers, there is no necessity for us to obey our unspiritual selves or to live unspiritual lives. If you do live in that way, you are doomed to die; but if by the Spirit you put an end to the misdeeds of the body you will live.


  Everyone moved by the Spirit is a son of God. The spirit you received is not the spirit of slaves bringing fear into your lives again; it is the spirit of sons, and it makes us cry out, ‘Abba, Father!’ The Spirit himself and our spirit bear united witness that we are children of God. And if we are children we are heirs as well: heirs of God and coheirs with Christ, sharing his sufferings so as to share his glory.

We do not know what happened to Jairus' daughter after she was raised from the dead. We cannot imagine going to the edges of hades, the first limbo, where the just were waiting for Christ's Harrowing of Hell. We cannot imagine being called back to life by God Himself, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. But, she was called out of physical death into a spiritual life, and I am sure, she was never the same.

So too, we are changed. Let us be real builders of the Church in allowing God to purify us so that we live as new creations. God, as we know from the Scriptures, is the God of the living and the dead. Come Holy Spirit and bring us to new life.