From: Colossians 1:21-23
Christ's Saving Action on the Faithful
[21] And you, who once were estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil
deeds, [22] he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in
order to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him,
[23] provided that you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not
shifting from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which has been
preached to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a
minister.
Commentary:
21. "Hostile in mind": literally, "enemies in mind and thought"; for,
even if they did not formally declare themselves to be enemies of God,
they were enemies in fact due to the way they acted.
22. "In his body of flesh": the physical body of Christ, through which
he offered himself to the Father on the cross and brought about the
reconciliation of men with God and with each other. Christ's sacred
humanity is, therefore, an instrument of salvation: through his passion
and death our Lord conquered sin and obtained the graces we need to be
cleansed of our faults and to be presented "holy and blameless and
irreproachable before him."
The sacred text shows that the Incarnation of the Word is something
diametrically opposed to a disembodied spiritualism, which is quite
foreign to the spirit of the Gospel. In a homily given in a Mass on the
campus of Navarre University in 1967, Monsignor Escriva explained that
"authentic Christianity, which professes the resurrection of all flesh,
has always quite logically opposed 'dis-incarnation', without fear of
being judged materialistic. We can, therefore, rightfully speak of a
'Christian materialism', which is boldly opposed to those materialisms
which are blind to the spirit" ("Conversations", 115).
Source: "The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries". Biblical text
taken from the Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries
made by members of the Faculty of Theology of the University of
Navarre, Spain. Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock,
Co. Dublin, Ireland.