During Lent – now a week old – we are called to look within, learning to examine our ways, our thoughts, and our choices. The Church continually calls us to Penance – the self-examination that leads to repentance and – at times – restitution. While modern churchgoers have forsaken the need for confession and penance, the Scriptures did not. The Apostle Paul writing to the Church in Galatia made the need for self-examination a crucial part of growing up in Christ.
“But I say, walk by the Spirit,
and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh
are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh,
for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want
to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the
works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry,
sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions,
divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I
warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom
of God.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,
goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things, there is
no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its
passions and desires” (Galatians 5:16-24).
In the 4th century, one
of the greatest Pastors, Theologians, and Bishops of the Church was St. Ambrose. St. Ambrose was instrumental in the conversion
of the great Church Father – St. Augustine.
He was the Bishop of Milan and wrote several treatises on Biblical
issues that have survived. One such writing
is on the theme of dealing with our flesh.
From
a letter by Saint Ambrose, “We are heirs of God, coheirs with Christ”
The person
who puts to death by the Spirit the deeds of our sinful nature will live, says
the Apostle. This is not surprising since one who has the Spirit of God becomes
a child of God. So true is it that he is a child of God that he receives not a
spirit that enslaves but the Spirit that makes us sons. So much so that the
Holy Spirit bears witness to our spirit that we are sons of God. This is the
witness of the Holy Spirit: he cries out in our hearts, Abba, Father as
we read in the letter to the Galatians.
There is also
that other great testimony to the fact that we are sons of God: we are
heirs of God, coheirs with Christ. A coheir of Christ is one who is
glorified along with Christ. The one who is glorified along with him is one
who, by suffering for him, suffers along with him.
To encourage
us in suffering, Paul adds that all our sufferings are small in comparison with
the wonderful reward that will be revealed in us; our labors do not deserve the
blessings that are to come. We shall be restored to the likeness of God, and
counted worthy of seeing him face to face.
He enhances
the greatness of the revelation that is to come by adding that creation also
looks forward to this revealing of the sons of God. Creation, he says, is at
present condemned to frustration, not of its own choice, but it lives in hope.
Its hope is in Christ, as it awaits the grace of his ministry; or it hopes that
it will share in the glorious freedom of the sons of God and be freed from its
bondage to corruption, so that there will be one freedom, shared by creation
and by the sons of God when their glory will be revealed.
At present,
however, while this revealing is delayed, all creation groans as it looks
forward to the glory of adoption and redemption; it is already in labor with
that spirit of salvation, and is anxious to be freed from its subjection to
frustration.
The meaning
is clear: those who have the firstfruits of the Spirit are groaning in
expectation of the adoption of sons. This adoption of sons is that of the whole
body of creation, when it will be as it were a son of God and see the divine,
eternal goodness face to face. The adoption of the sons is present in the
Church of the Lord when the Spirit cries out: Abba, Father, as you
read in the letter to the Galatians. But it will be perfect when all who are
worthy of seeing the face of God rise in incorruption, in honor and in glory.
Then our humanity will know that it has been truly redeemed. So Paul glories in
saying: We are saved by hope. Hope saves, just as faith does, for of
faith it is said: Your faith has saved you.
Peace
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