Monday in the 30th Week of Ordinary Time, October 27, 2025

Romans 8, 12-17

We are not debtors to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. 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. For those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a spirit of adoption, through which we cry, “Abba, Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if only we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. 

We continue with reflections on Paul’s Letter to the Romans, which is used for the First Readings this month.

In this brief but profound passage, St. Paul draws back the veil on what it means to live as a Christian. We are not merely forgiven sinners; we are reborn sons and daughters of God. The Apostle begins by reminding us of what we are not: “We are not debtors to the flesh.” The “flesh” here means more than the body — it is the whole condition of fallen humanity that measures life only by pleasure, comfort, or self-preservation. To live “according to the flesh” is to live as if God’s Spirit had not entered the world. And so Paul warns: such a life leads to death, not only the death of the body, but the slow suffocation of the soul, which forgets how to breathe the air of grace.

But the Christian is not bound by that old servitude. The Spirit of God has entered our hearts like a new breath, a new vitality. “If by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” This is not an invitation to despise our humanity, but to let grace govern it — to let the Spirit direct even the impulses of flesh and blood toward what is holy. The Spirit sanctifies the human, not by erasing it, but by filling it with divine life.

Paul then reaches the summit of his message: those who are led by the Spirit are sons of God. The language is astonishingly intimate. We are not merely subjects in the kingdom; we are family members in the household of the Father. The Spirit we have received is not one of “slavery to fall back into fear.” The Law once made us servants who obeyed because we must. The Spirit now makes us children who love because we belong. And so we cry with Christ himself: “Abba, Father!” — that tender Aramaic word that Jesus used in Gethsemane when he spoke to his Father from the depths of obedience and love.

In that cry the mystery of adoption is made real. The Spirit does not merely tell us we are God’s children; he bears witness with our spirit — an interior testimony, deeper than words—that our identity has changed. Grace does not hover over us like a legal declaration; it transforms us from within. We become capable of addressing God not as a distant Creator but as a loving Father.

Finally, Paul extends this dignity into a promise: if we are children, then we are heirs—co-heirs with Christ. The Son’s inheritance becomes ours, because we are joined to him. But Paul reminds us that sonship and inheritance come through the same path the Son himself walked: suffering leading to glory. “If only we suffer with him, so that we may also be glorified with him.” Our sufferings, then, are not meaningless; they are the birth pangs of divine life within us. They shape us into the likeness of the Son, preparing us for the inheritance that will be revealed when we are finally made perfect in him.

Thus, to live “according to the Spirit” is to live as one who already shares in the divine family. We walk the earth not as slaves afraid of punishment, but as sons and daughters learning to love as our Father loves. The more we live in that Spirit, the more our hearts echo the voice of Christ within us: “Abba, Father!”