The Catholic Calendar for Thursday, October 23, 2003
Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time
St. John of Capistrano, priest, religious

Scripture from today's Liturgy of the Word:
Romans 6:16-23
Psalm 1:1-4,6
Luke 12:49-53

A reflection on today's Sacred Scripture:

Today's first reading from Romans is a description of the kind of earthly resurrection we should experience in the here and now. Paul speaks of our dying into slavery -- a very different kind of slavery than we had experience before that, which was a slavery to sin. This new slavery is a bonding to the Spirit, which makes us slaves to righteousness, that is, living by the Will of God.

St. Paul is so down-to-earth. He realizes that this entails a struggle, a daily, even hourly struggle not to fall back into the attraction that sin can hold over our weakness. Nevertheless, the grace of God is strong enough to keep us bonded to the Spirit. In the Spirit are all the virtues -- humility, gratitude, the zeal to love God and love one's neighbor, patience, fortitude, courage -- to name but a few.

If we live with the struggle, knowing that our earnest prayer will win the day -- every day, then we need never fear Jesus' warning in the Gospel that we have no idea how long or how short the time before God's calls us to give an account of ourselves.

- Msgr. Paul Whitmore (smartins at twcny dot rr dot com)

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posted by joachim at 4:14 AM