Saturday in the 29th Week of Ordinary Time, October 25, 2025

Romans 8, 1-11

Now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has freed you from the law of sin and death. For what the law, weakened by the flesh, was powerless to do, this God has done: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for the sake of sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, so that the righteous decree of the law might be fulfilled in us, who live not according to the flesh but according to the spirit. For those who live according to the flesh are concerned with the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the spirit with the things of the spirit. The concern of the flesh is death, but the concern of the spirit is life and peace. For the concern of the flesh is hostility toward God; it does not submit to the law of God, nor can it; and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh; on the contrary, you are in the spirit, if only the Spirit of God dwells in you. Whoever does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is alive because of righteousness. If the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the one who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also, through his Spirit that dwells in you.

There are moments in Paul’s letters when one feels the gates of heaven opening before the reader; this is one of them. The long struggle he described in the previous chapter—between the good he willed and the evil he did—finds its resolution not in greater human effort but in the entrance of divine grace. “Now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” These words are not the conclusion of a moral argument but the proclamation of a new creation. Humanity, burdened by the law and the weakness of the flesh, has been drawn into another order of existence: life in the Spirit.

Paul contrasts two laws — one of sin and death, the other of the Spirit of life. The law of Moses, good and holy though it was, could not heal the inner wound of human nature. It could prescribe but not empower. The law of the Spirit, by contrast, is not written on stone but infused into the heart. It is the divine energy of the Risen Christ, the very breath of God dwelling within the believer, accomplishing what the old law could only desire. This is the central paradox of redemption: what the law could not do, God has done, through the sending of His Son “in the likeness of sinful flesh.” The flesh in which sin reigned becomes the instrument through which sin is condemned and overcome.

To live “according to the flesh” does not mean simply to live according to the body, but to live under the tyranny of self-enclosed desire—the human condition turned inward upon itself. To live “according to the Spirit” is to be opened outward and upward, to breathe with the divine life that animates the saints. The one life contracts and withers; the other expands and quickens. The concern of the flesh is death, not merely because it ends in mortality, but because it resists communion; it cannot submit to God’s law of love. The concern of the Spirit is life and peace — life because it unites us to the source of all being, and peace because it reconciles the divided heart.

Paul then turns from teaching to personal address: “But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, if only the Spirit of God dwells in you.” This is more than exhortation—it is a declaration of identity. The Christian is one in whom the Spirit of God has taken up residence. God is not only above us, but within us; not only commanding, but transforming. The divine indwelling is not symbolic; it is the real participation of our souls in the risen life of Christ. This is why the same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead will also give life to our mortal bodies. The Resurrection, already begun in Christ, begins mystically in every soul where grace reigns. The body remains subject to decay, yet even now it carries within it the seed of immortality.

To read this passage is to hear the heartbeat of the Gospel. Christianity is not a moral improvement project but a transference of being — a passage from the realm of death to the realm of life. “If Christ is in you,” says Paul, “the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is alive because of righteousness.” What greater consolation could there be than this: that beneath the frailty of the flesh and the dust of our mortality, the breath of the eternal Spirit already moves?

Here, the Apostle speaks not only to the intellect but to the soul’s deepest longing. We are not condemned; we are “indwelt”. The Spirit who raised Jesus from the tomb has entered into the dark places of our own nature to quicken them with divine light. To live by that 

Friday in the 29th Week of Ordinary Time, October 25, 2025

Romans 7, 18-25

I know that good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh. The willing is ready at hand, but doing the good is not. For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. So, then, I discover the principle that when I want to do right, evil is at hand. For I take delight in the law of God, in my inner self, but I see in my members another principle at war with the law of my mind, taking me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Miserable one that I am! Who will deliver me from this mortal body? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Few passages in Scripture speak so directly to the inner drama of the human soul as this one from Saint Paul. We find here not abstract theology, but the confession of a man who knows the terrain of the heart — the divided will, the longing for holiness, and the grief of repeatedly falling short. Paul puts into words the struggle every sincere believer feels: the conflict between the mind enlightened by grace and the flesh still chained to sin.

“I know that good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh.” Paul does not deny the goodness of creation or of the body itself. He is not speaking of the body as God made it, but of the fallen nature that clings to him like a shadow. The “flesh” is that disordered tendency within us which resists God, the gravitational pull of self that bends our desires inward. It is not simply weakness—it is rebellion woven into weakness. And Paul’s lament is universal: “The willing is ready at hand, but doing the good is not.” Every soul that has ever resolved to pray more faithfully, to be patient, to resist temptation, knows this frustration. The will aspires heavenward, but the hand falters.

Paul describes this inner war not as theoretical but as a lived captivity: “I see in my members another principle at war with the law of my mind, taking me captive to the law of sin.” The “law of the mind” is that inner consent to the truth of God, the recognition that his commandments are good and life-giving. The “law of sin” is the relentless counter-law that urges us to act otherwise, to serve ourselves, to grasp, to excuse. We know what we ought to do, and we even want to do it — but we find ourselves divided. The tragedy is not ignorance; it is impotence.

Paul’s cry, “Miserable one that I am! Who will deliver me from this mortal body?” is not despair, but realism. He looks without illusion at his condition. There is a moment in the spiritual life when we stop pretending that we can perfect ourselves through willpower, that we can domesticate sin through discipline alone. That is when grace begins to work most deeply. The cry of “Who will deliver me?” is the first clear note of humility—the acknowledgment that only divine mercy can reach the roots of our disorder.

And so Paul’s lament bursts suddenly into thanksgiving: “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” The answer to his question is not an argument but a person. Christ enters the human struggle not as an observer but as the Redeemer who assumes our weakness and conquers it from within. On the cross, He takes upon himself the very conflict Paul describes — the meeting of divine obedience and human frailty—and transforms it into victory.

Through baptism, believers are joined to this mystery. The same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in us, empowering what the flesh could never achieve on its own. The Christian life does not eliminate struggle, but reorients it: we fight no longer as slaves of sin, but as children of grace. The war within continues, yet the outcome is assured. The mind renewed by Christ learns to govern the passions not by fear but by love.

Saint Augustine, meditating on this passage, saw in it the mirror of his own conversion. The more he strove to will the good by his own strength, the more he found himself enslaved. Only when he surrendered to grace did he discover true freedom—the freedom to love.

Paul’s confession thus becomes our own. We recognize in his words the pattern of our days: the tension between the law of sin and the law of grace, the frustration of failure, the unquenchable hope that Christ will not abandon the work he has begun in us.

So long as we remain in this mortal body, the conflict endures. But in every struggle there sounds the echo of that final thanksgiving: “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

Thursday in the 29th Week of Ordinary Time, October 23, 2025

Romans 6, 19-23

I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your nature. For just as you presented the parts of your bodies as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness for lawlessness, so now present them as slaves to righteousness for sanctification. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free from righteousness. But what profit did you get then from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been freed from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit that you have leads to sanctification, and its end is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

When St. Paul says, “I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your nature,” he acknowledges how difficult it is for the fallen mind to grasp the invisible realities of grace. We are bound by the imagery of servitude and reward, of wages and masters, because our hearts learn slowly. Yet within these “human terms,” Paul reveals a divine paradox: the only true freedom is found in holy bondage—the joyful slavery of love.

Every person, whether saint or sinner, serves something. The modern illusion that one can be “free” in a purely autonomous sense is the very deceit the serpent whispered in Eden: “You shall be as gods.” When man rejects God’s lordship, he does not become his own master; he simply trades one slavery for another. Sin quickly becomes a tyrant. The mind that yields to pride or lust or anger soon discovers that it no longer commands itself. Paul therefore says, “You presented the parts of your bodies as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness.” The sinner thinks he is expressing freedom, yet he is only displaying chains. The passions become his overseers, and the end of that service—its “wages”—is death.

By contrast, the Christian is “freed from sin” precisely by becoming “a slave of God.” This new slavery is not humiliation but healing. In sin, the will is fractured and dissipated; in grace, it is gathered back into unity. The one who serves righteousness is not coerced; he is drawn by love. What once bound him from without now moves him from within, for charity becomes his motive power. The soul learns to say with the Psalmist, “I will run in the way of your commandments, for you have set my heart at liberty.”

Paul’s word sanctification (ἁγιασμός) signifies this gradual transformation by which the soul, belonging to God, takes on the likeness of its Master. Holiness is not an external decoration but the interior shaping of the heart by divine grace. The Christian presents the “members” of his body—his eyes, his tongue, his hands—as instruments of righteousness. What had once been weapons of rebellion become tools of peace. Each act of self-mastery, each quiet obedience, is another stroke in the divine sculpture by which God fashions His image anew in us.

The Apostle then poses a searching question: “What profit did you get then from the things of which you are now ashamed?” Every sinner, when grace has opened his eyes, can recall some moment when pleasure promised sweetness but left only bitterness. The fruits of sin always taste of ashes. Shame itself becomes a gift, for it awakens the memory of our true dignity. Only one who remembers that he was created for holiness can feel the pain of having betrayed it. Yet Paul will not let shame harden into despair. He contrasts the barren end of sin—death—with the living fruit of grace—sanctification leading to eternal life.

Death here is not merely the dissolution of the body; it is the alienation of the soul from its source. To live apart from God is to wither even while breathing. Conversely, to live “as a slave of God” is to enter into the vitality of the divine love that knows no decay. Eternal life is not earned, as wages are earned; it is received as gift. Paul’s final line is a masterstroke of theology and poetry: “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” The two halves of the sentence mirror the two economies that govern all existence—the economy of merit and the economy of grace. One pays what is owed; the other gives beyond all measure.

To choose Christ, then, is to step out of the marketplace of sin and into the household of God, where the Master calls His servants friends. In that friendship obedience becomes joy, and the heart learns that true liberty is not the right to do as we please but the power to love as we ought.

Wednesday in the 29th Week of Ordinary Time, October 22, 2025

Romans 6, 12-18

Sin must not reign over your mortal bodies so that you obey their desires. And do not present the parts of your bodies to sin as weapons for wickedness, but present yourselves to God as raised from the dead to life and the parts of your bodies to God as weapons for righteousness. For sin is not to have any power over you, since you are not under the law but under grace. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? Of course not! Do you not know that if you present yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, although you were once slaves of sin, you have become obedient from the heart to the pattern of teaching to which you were entrusted. Freed from sin, you have become slaves of righteousness.

We continue to reflect on the passages from St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans used for the First Readings at Mass during this time.

In the last reflection, on Romans 5, we saw how God created the human race in Adam at the very beginning and how as a result of the Original Sin committed by Adam and Eve all their descendents were affected, becoming the heirs of death.  Then, in God’s merciful Providence, his Son became our New Adam, joining himself to our nature and making us members of his Body through the grace he won for us in his Passion and Death.  Now, all those who share in his life through this grace have become the heirs of eternal life.

And yet, eternal life may be lost.  Just as a Jew separated himself from his family’s heritage by renouncing an ancestor, so someone who has been baptized and begun to live the life of grace can separate himself from this life by renouncing the New Adam through sin. As St. Paul warns: “Sin must not reign over your mortal bodies so that you obey their desires.”  When we were baptized and later confirmed, we or our parents, speaking for us, rejected Satan and sin.  This rejection must be continual so that God “reigns” in our mortal bodies and not the wickedness of the Evil One.  With God in us through the gift of his grace we are made “weapons for righteousness”, that is, believers who seek to bring others into the Faith, “stealing” them from the devil.

This is possible because “sin is not to have any power over you, since you are not under the Law but under grace.” The Law here is the Old Law, the Law of Moses which did not have the power to save but which did point out the need to be saved.  St. Paul, writing to a congregation containing Jewish Christians as well as Gentiles, makes clear that all who believe in Christ and are members of his Body are under the New Law, the New Covenant in Christ’s Blood.  Sin no longer has power over us unless we surrender to it, rejecting the Law of the Lord Jesus.

St. Paul likens accepting the Law of Jesus as becoming his “slaves”: we obey him in all things. This slavery, unlike human slavery, is in our best interests because it leads to eternal life: “Blessed are those slaves whom the Lord, when he comes, shall find watching [for him]. Amen I say to you that he will gird himself and make them sit down to meat and passing will minister unto them.”  Indeed, we are no “slaves of sin”, but of righteousness, rejoicing in the privilege of serving him who died for us.

Tuesday in the 29th Week of Ordinary Time, October 21, 2025

Romans 5, 12, 15, 17-19, 20-21

Through one man sin entered the world, and through sin, death, and thus death came to all men, inasmuch as all sinned. If by that one person’s transgression the many died, how much more did the grace of God and the gracious gift of the one man Jesus Christ overflow for the many. For if, by the transgression of the one, death came to reign through that one, how much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the gift of justification come to reign in life through the one Jesus Christ. In conclusion, just as through one transgression condemnation came upon all, so, through one righteous act acquittal and life came to all. For just as through the disobedience of one man the many were made sinners, so, through the obedience of the one the many will be made righteous. Where sin increased, grace overflowed all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through justification for eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

We continue to reflect on the passages of St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans used for the First Reading this month.

St. Paul presents the fundamental idea of the Christian teaching on humanity in these verses, that of original sin and grace. In order to understand what Paul means here we must understand the Hebrew thinking about man.  Core to this thinking is the relationship between a man and his descendants: he is in them, and they are in him — not in an abstract or symbolic way, but in a very real, concrete way.  Thus Exodus 34, 7 describes God as one who “render# the iniquity of the fathers to the children, and to the grandchildren unto the third and fourth generation.”  And in Matthew 23, 29-30 the Lord Jesus addresses the Jews and says, “If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the Prophets.Wherefore you are witnesses against yourselves, that you are the sons of them that killed the Prophets.” The guilt of the fathers follows into their children, unless the children explicitly reject and condemn their parents, cutting themselves off from them.

And so the human race was bound up organically in Adam and Eve so that Paul can say, “Through one man sin entered the world, and through sin, death, and thus death came to all men, inasmuch as all sinned.”  This shocks us in the modern Western world with our devotion to the principle of indivualism and “personal autonomy”, but for most of history this understanding of the human race as a collective body prevailed in much of the world.  It was only beginning in the 1500’s that it was challenged.

We might question the fairness of this arrangement by Almighty God, but the pot cannot complain to the potter: “Woe to him who strives with his Maker, an earthen vessel with the potter! Does the clay say to him who fashions it, What are you making? or Your work has no handles? Woe to him who says to a father, ‘What are you begetting?’ or to a woman, With what are you in travail? Thus says the Lord the Holy One of Israel, and his Maker: Will you question me about my children, or command me concerning the work of my hands?”  

God, from all eternity, destined the human race for blessedness. Foreseeing that “the work of his hands” would rebel against him, God crested the human race in such a way that it could be saved. And so he created us as he did, in the original Adam (whom God subsequently made into the unity of Adam and Eve). And so as we sinned in Old Adam, so we are saved by the New Adam, the Son of God who became incarnate and poured grace into this new (or, “renewed” Body of which he made himself the Head.  He poured into us grace, whereas the Old Adam had poured into us death. And in this, Jesus Christ did not pour a mere sufficiency of life and grace into us, but a super-abundance: “For if, by the transgression of the one, death came to reign through that one, how much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the gift of justification come to reign in life through the one Jesus Christ.”

“Just as through one transgression condemnation came upon all, so, through one righteous act acquittal and life came to all.” The sacrificial Death of Jesus on the Cross cancels out the death that Adam and Eve’s sin handed on to their children: the Innocent One died for the guilty so that now we “also might reign through justification for eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Monday in the 29th Week of Ordinary Time, October 20, 2025

Romans 4:20-25

Abraham did not doubt God’s promise in unbelief; rather, he was empowered by faith and gave glory to God and was fully convinced that what God had promised he was also able to do. That is why it was credited to him as righteousness. But it was not for him alone that it was written that it was credited to him; it was also for us, to whom it will be credited, who believe in the one who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was handed over for our transgressions and was raised for our justification.

We continue reflecting on the Letter of St. Paul to the Romans.

When St. Paul speaks of Abraham in his letter to the Romans, he does not present a man without questions or trials, but a man whose trust in God deepened through them. “Abraham did not doubt God’s promise in unbelief,” Paul writes, “but was empowered by faith and gave glory to God.”  The phrase is striking: Abraham’s faith was not a mere assent of the mind but a giving of glory.  His belief magnified God’s majesty.  By trusting that God could do what he had promised, Abraham proclaimed the divine power more eloquently than words could.

Faith, then, is itself a form of worship.  When we believe that God will be faithful, we glorify him as the One who cannot lie, whose goodness does not fail.  To doubt in despair would be to narrow the horizon of His mercy.  To believe — even when everything in us trembles — is to say with Abraham: “You are able.”

St. Thomas Aquinas explains that Abraham’s faith was counted as righteousness because it aligned the whole man — intellect, will, and heart—with the truth of God.  It was not faith in faith, nor faith in himself, but faith in the living God who can raise the dead.  To believe in such a God is already to begin to live the new life of grace.

Paul then draws the bridge from Abraham to us.  “It was not for him alone,” he says, “that it was written that it was credited to him; it was also for us.”  The story of Abraham is not a relic of ancient nomads wandering through desert sands; it is the mirror in which every Christian must see his or her own pilgrimage.  The promise to Abraham — of a son, of countless descendants, of a homeland prepared by God—finds its perfect fulfillment in Christ.  In Jesus, the true Son is born, the nations become his children, and the homeland of heaven opens before us.

We, too, must believe against hope.  The faith of Abraham is resurrected in us whenever we dare to hope that God’s word will be fulfilled, even when experience seems to contradict it.  “He was fully convinced,” Paul says, “that what God had promised He was also able to do.”  That conviction is not arrogance but humility—the surrender of reason to a Wisdom higher than its own.

The Apostle brings his meditation to its summit in verse 24: “It will be credited to us who believe in the One who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.”  Abraham believed that God could give life to the barren womb; we believe that God has given life to the tomb.  The same power that made Sarah fruitful has made the sepulcher fruitful; from death itself has come forth the new Adam, the beginning of a new creation.  “He was handed over for our transgressions,” Paul continues, “and raised for our justification.”  In these two clauses lies the whole Paschal mystery.  The Cross is the price of our redemption; the Resurrection is the proof of our restoration.  Christ’s death cancels sin; his rising imparts the righteousness of new life.

To believe this is to stand beside Abraham beneath the starlit sky, counting the innumerable mercies of God.  Faith does not make the promise come true — it allows us to enter into what God has already accomplished.  The righteousness imputed to Abraham becomes, through Christ, the righteousness infused into us.  The same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead awakens within us the cry of praise, the faith that gives glory to God.

The 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time, October 19, 2025

Luke 18, 1-8

Jesus told his disciples a parable about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary. He said, “There was a judge in a certain town who neither feared God nor respected any human being. And a widow in that town used to come to him and say, ‘Render a just decision for me against my adversary.’ For a long time the judge was unwilling, but eventually he thought, ‘While it is true that I neither fear God nor respect any human being, because this widow keeps bothering me I shall deliver a just decision for her lest she finally come and strike me.’” The Lord said, “Pay attention to what the dishonest judge says. Will not God then secure the rights of his chosen ones who call out to him day and night? Will he be slow to answer them? I tell you, he will see to it that justice is done for them speedily. But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

“The necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary.”  It may seem impossible for us to “pray always” here on earth where we do become weary even despite our best efforts, and the Lord himself recognized this when he said, “The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak” (Matthew 26, 41).  And again, praying “always” does not seem practical in a world in which we must work and carry out other responsibilities.  But we must not confuse the “always” with “continually” or “without a break”.  This we will be able to do only in heaven.  So what does the Lord teach us to do? To pray at all times of the day: to pray in the morning, at noon, during the afternoon, and in the evening.  We need not pray long prayers spend a lot of time praying, but throughout the day to offer praise and thanksgiving to Almighty God and to ask him for what we need.  This mindfulness of God will make us more capable of loving him and of receiving the good he has for us.

The Lord Jesus tells us a parable about a judge “who neither feared God nor respected any human being.”  The point of the parable is to show that perseverance in prayer brings an answer from God.  In the parable, the widow tests the patience of the judge; in reality, God tests our patience — not in order to cause us grief but in order to strengthen our virtue.  We can see how God works by looking at the opposite of the unjust judge: First, God loves and respects us, even to the extent of allowing us to use our free will in ways that are not good for us. Second, the unjust judge is unwilling to render a judgment in the widow’s case, but Almighty God is most willing to assist us and already knows how he will do this when we pray to him.  Third, the unjust judge finally renders a verdict for the widow out of fear, whereas God answers our prayers at the more apt time for us — not necessarily when we first ask for a hint but when our receiving it will do us the most good. This is what Jesus means by “speedily” — the earliest moment when it his answer will be of greatest benefit.  And he does this out of the infinite love he has for us.  

“But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” This may seem an odd note on which to close the parable, but the Lord Jesus is talking about the role of faith in prayer: we pray because we firmly believe that God will help us in our need.  The Lord’s words come as a warning against complacency and despair in our faith, which in both cases result in a failure to pray.