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From: Romans 8:11-17

Life in the Spirit (continued)

[11] If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who
raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through
his Spirit who dwells in you. [12] So then, brethren, we are debtors, not to the
flesh, to live according to the flesh — [13] for if you live according to the flesh you
will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live.

Christians are children of God

[14] For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. [15] For you did
not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the
spirit of sonship. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” [16] it is the Spirit himself bea-
ring witness with our spirit that we are children of God, [17] and if children, then
heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in
order that we may also be glorified with him.

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Commentary:

10-11. Once he is justified the Christian lives in the grace of God and confidently
hopes in his future resurrection; Christ himself lives in him (cf. Gal 2:20; 1 Cor 15:
20-23). However, he is not spared the experience of death, a consequence of
original sin (cf. Rom 5:12; 6:23). Along with suffering, concupiscence and other
limitations, death is still a factor after Baptism; it is something which motivates
us to struggle and makes us to be like Christ. Almost all commentators interpret
the expression “your bodies are dead because of sin” as referring to the fact that,
due to sin, the human body is destined to die. So sure is this prospect of death
that the Apostle sees the body as “already dead”.

St. John Chrysostom makes an acute observation: if Christ is living in the Chris-
tian, then the divine Spirit, the third Person of the Trinity, is also present in him.
If this divine Spirit is absent, then indeed death reigns supreme, and with it the
wrath of God, rejection of his laws, separation from Christ, and expulsion of our
Guest. And he adds: “But when one has the Spirit within, what can be lacking?
With the Spirit one belongs to Christ, one possesses him, one vies for honour
ith the angels. With the Spirit, the flesh is crucified, one tastes the delight of an
immortal life, one has a pledge of future resurrection and advances rapidly on the
path of virtue. This is what Paul calls putting the flesh to death” (Hom. on Rom,
13).

14-30. The life of a Christian is sharing in the life of Christ, God’s only Son. By
becoming, through adoption, true children of God we have, so to speak, a right
to share also in Christ’s inheritance — eternal life in heaven (vv. 13-18). This di-
vine life in us, begun in Baptism through rebirth in the Holy Spirit, will grow under
the guidance of this Spirit, who makes us ever more like Christ (vv. 14, 26-27).
So, our adoption as sons is already a fact — we already have the first fruits of the
Spirit (v. 23) — but only at the end of time, when our body rises in glory, will our
redemption reach its climax (vv. 23-25). Meanwhile we are in a waiting situation
— not free from suffering (v. 18), groans (v. 23) and weakness (v. 26) — a situation
characterized by a certain tension between what we already possess and are,
and what we yearn for. This yearning is something which all creation experien-
ces; by God’s will, its destiny is intimately linked to our own, and it too awaits
its transformation at the end of the world (vv. 19-22). All this is happening in ac-
cordance with a plan which God has, a plan established from all eternity which
is unfolding the course of time under the firm guidance of divine providence (vv.
28-30).

14-15 St. Josemaria Escriva taught thousands of people about this awareness
of divine filiation which is such an important part of the Christian vocation. Here
is what he says, for example, in The Way, 267: “We’ve got to be convinced that
God is always near us. We live as though he were far away, in the heavens high
above, and we forget that he is also continually by our side.

“He is there like a loving Father. He loves each of us more than all the mothers
in the world can love their children — helping, inspiring us, blessing . . . and for-
giving.

“How often we have misbehaved and then cleared the frowns from our parents’
brows, telling them: I won’t do it any more! — That same day, perhaps, we fall
again . . . — And our father, with feigned harshness in his voice and serious face,
reprimands us while in his heart he is moved, realizing our weakness and thin-
king: poor child, how hard he tries to behave well!

“We’ve go to be filled, to be imbued with the idea that our Father, and very much
our Father, is God who is both near us and in heaven.”

This awareness of God as Father was something which the first chancellor of
the University of Navarre experienced with special intensity one day in 1931:
“They were difficult times, from a human point of view, but even so I was quite
sure of the impossible — this impossibility which you can now see as an accom-
plished fact. I felt God acting within me with overriding force, filling my heart and
bringing to my lips this tender invocation — Abba! Pater! I was out in the street,
in a tram; being out in the street is no hindrance for our contemplative dialogue;
for us, the hustle and bustle of the world is a place for prayer” (St. J. Escrivá,
quoted in Bernal, p. 214).

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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.

From: Luke 13:10-17

Jesus Cures a Woman on the Sabbath

[10] Now He (Jesus) was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath.
[11] And there was a woman who had had a spirit of infirmity for eighteen years;
she was bent over and could not fully straighten herself. [12] And when Jesus
saw her, He called her and said to her, “Woman, you are freed from your infir-
mity.” [13] And He laid His hands upon her, and immediately she was made
straight, and she praised God. [14] But the ruler of the synagogue, indignant
because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, said to the people, “There are six
days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be healed, and
not on the Sabbath Day.” [15] Then the Lord answered him, “You hypocrites!
Does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his ass from the manger,
and lead it away to water it? [16] And ought not this woman, a daughter of
Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on
the Sabbath Day?” [17] As He said this, all His adversaries were put to shame;
and all the people rejoiced at all the glorious things that were done by Him.

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Commentary:

10-17. As was the custom, our Lord used to go to the synagogue on the Sab-
bath. Noticing this poor woman He uses His power and mercy to cure her. The
ordinary people are delighted, but the ruler of the synagogue, apparently zea-
lous about fulfilling the Law (cf. Exodus 20:8; 31:14; Leviticus 19:3-30), publicly
upbraids our Lord. Jesus energetically censures this warped interpretation of the
Law and stresses the need for mercy and understanding, which is what pleases
God (cf. Hosea 6:6; James 2:13).

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.