Tuesday in the 28th Week of Ordinary Time, October 14, 2025

Romans 1, 16-25

Brothers and sisters: I am not ashamed of the Gospel. It is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: for Jew first, and then Greek. For in it is revealed the righteousness of God from faith to faith; as it is written, “The one who is righteous by faith will live.”  The wrath of God is indeed being revealed from heaven against every impiety and wickedness of those who suppress the truth by their wickedness. For what can be known about God is evident to them, because God made it evident to them. Ever since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood and perceived in what he has made. As a result, they have no excuse; for although they knew God they did not accord him glory as God or give him thanks. Instead, they became vain in their reasoning, and their senseless minds were darkened. While claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for the likeness of an image of mortal man or of birds or of four-legged animals or of snakes. Therefore, God handed them over to impurity through the lusts of their hearts for the mutual degradation of their bodies. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and revered and worshiped the creature rather than the creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

The Letter to the Romans must be read as indeed Paul wrote: an answer to a question.  After his greeting, Paul launches right away into a theological lecture.  Since we do not possess the letter the Roman Church sent either to Paul or one of his allies in the preaching of the Gospel, we have to discern from his answer what the question entailed. After his declaration that he has not gone to Rome because he was “ashamed” of the Gospel (for, as he had said, he had been thwarted so far in his plans to visit the Christians there), he introduces the necessity of faith, which is available to both the Jews and the Greeks (the first Christians in Rome were Greek-speakers).  Faith reveals God’s plan for the human race, and so reveals the evil that must be avoided so that grace may be embraced: “The one who is righteous by faith will live.”  This revelation comes in the face of wickedness which strives to keep the human race ignorant and content to live in sin.  However, even without the gift of faith, enough can be known about God so that sin can also be understood for what it is.  That is, the existence of God and certain of his attributes and commandments can be known naturally — a fact confirmed by the First Vatican Council in 1870.  We can come to this knowledge because the world of nature bears the stamp of the Creator: “Ever since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood and perceived in what he has made.”  Thus, “there is no excuse” for atheism or belief on many gods.  These came about because “they became vain in their reasoning”.  That is, through arrogance, the human race rejected the God they could see in nature and concocted gods that would allow them to live like beasts.  Having rejected God, God permitted them to go their way and they fell into the foulest degradations.  They, in fact, became like the gods they created for themselves — the gods that were represented as animals in the ancient Middle East, and the libidinous, volatile gods of the Greeks and Romans.

From considering these opening verses, we can discern that Paul is writing in response to the question of why the Gospel was necessary for salvation. What could the early Christians in pagan Rome tell their complacent neighbors about why they had rejected the old gods and their old ways and now believed in Jesus Christ and his commandments?

In reading these words of Paul, we ought to consider what we would say to our own neighbors about why we believe in Jesus, and why we refuse to join in the pagan behavior that now passes as respectable.