Wednesday in the 28th Week of Ordinary Time, October 14, 2020

Galatians 5:18-25

If you are guided by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are obvious: immorality, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, rivalry, jealousy, outbursts of fury, acts of selfishness, dissensions, factions, occasions of envy, drinking bouts, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the Kingdom of God. In contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified their flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also follow the Spirit.

The chapels here are so lovely.  Their solemn beauty and dignity raise up the heart and make it hard not to worship God.  Many of the churches in my diocese were built at a time when the zeitgeist was “relevance”.  Priests and religious sisters cast aside the clothing that made them distinct and that reminded themselves of their distinctness.  The idea was to blend into the crowd, to become one of the sheep.  But then the priest or religious sister loses the very thing which people need: a vivid reminder of Christ’s presence.  This misguided pursuit of “relevance” very much affected church architecture during the late 1960’s through the 1980’s.  According to the prevailing notion at the time, churches needed to fit in with other public buildings such as community centers and municipal offices, again, in order to “become one of the sheep”.  But a church, particularly a Catholic church, has as its purpose the worship of God.  Any other building has as its purpose the service of man.  A church, in order to fulfill its purpose, must have a distinctive appearance that draws people to it.  A saint draws people to God by his or her holy deeds.  A church draws people to God through its beauty.  Clarity and symmetry provide the foundation for this beauty, and point the way to Almighty God.  (In yesterday’s reflection I mentioned the distinctive “look” cultivated by the Pharisees.  The priest and the religious dress in a particular not to attract attention to themselves but to God.)

This is also true in the moral life.  We must know what actions constitute vices and what are reckoned as virtues.  Avoiding wicked actions and engaging in virtuous ones have the effect of pointing to a transcendent purpose or cause for the behavior.  Virtue confronts the non virtuous with the question, Why?  Why be honest when dishonesty is easier, or when it would more certainly achieve a stated goal?  Why act chastely when no one else does?  Why not exercise your authority gratuitously, since doing so makes us feel powerful?

St. Paul calls such things “works of the flesh”, that is, actions which do not aid the progress of the soul on its road to perfection and salvation.  Works of the flesh provide, perhaps, momentary excitement, but leave people sad, restless, and broken.  Paul lists the major ones for these new Christians to know, although he calls them “obvious”: “immorality”, that is, fornication, according to the Greek; “impurity”, of a sexual kind, which we can infer from the word’s place in the list; “licentiousness” or “lewdness”; “idolatry”, dedication to anything that is not God; “sorcery” or “witchcraft”; “hatred”; “rivalry”; “jealousy”; “outbursts of fury”; “acts of selfishness”, or “ambition”, according to the Greek; “dissensions”, that is, challenging Church teaching; “factions”, or, “a self-chosen opinion”, according to the Greek;  “envy”, or “holding a grudge”, according to the Greek; drinking bouts”, or, simply, “drunkenness”; and “orgies”, which is “reveling”, in the Greek.

To these, St. Paul opposes “the fruit of the Spirit”: “love”; “joy”; “peace”, that is, of mind; “patience”; “kindness”; “generosity”; “faithfulness”; “gentleness”, “self-control”, or “self-mastery”.  These lead to a happiness here on earth which is not dependent upon our present circumstances, and to a joy in heaven which no one will be able to take away.  St, Paul adds to this, “Against such there is no law”, which may make us think of a line attributed to St. Augustine: “Love, and do what you will.”  The meaning here is that these fruits of the Spirit go beyond any earthly law and cannot be enforced, or prohibited by it.  They belong to a kingdom not of this world and are possessed by the citizens of this kingdom.

Now, many people strive to overcome their habitual vices by fighting against them, and this can work for some.  Others concentrate on living the virtues.  For example, a person fighting lust can avoid anything suggestive and engage in social activities or hobbies that absorb his or her attention.  Or, a person could strive to live chastely, that is, not so much fighting against an urge, but looking at the world each day as a new chance to serve and to do good.  Both methods require strength, foresight, and perseverance, but one may be better suited for one person than another.  They can also be utilized consecutively, building up strength against the vice, and then living not so much in an anti-lust mode, but in a chaste mode, as it were.

Incidentally, the first sentence of this reading should be separated with a paragraph break  from what follows, as it pertains to the previous subject under discussion, the question of whether circumcision would profit the Gentile Christians of Galatia (to which St. Paul vigorously answers No).