Wednesday of the Twenty-eighth Week
(Galatians 5:18-25; Luke 11: 42-46)
Throughout Christianity there have been cynics who see the
body as evil. In the first centuries
after Christ Docetists claimed that the body was so bad that Christ could not
possibly have had one. In more recent
times puritan sects have propounded that the body has had to be kept under tight
wraps. But the New Testament is
unanimous, Christ became incarnate. He
had a body which is good.
But the good of the body can be taken over by its own evil
inclinations. St. Paul alludes to these
inclinations in today’s reading from Galatians.
He identifies them as the works of “the flesh.” They are sexual impurity, hatred, selfishness
and the like. The flesh’s relationship
to the body may be considered as breath inflating a balloon. The balloon moves but is sluggish and heavy. Paul contrasts “the works of the flesh” with
“the fruit of the Spirit.” The “Spirit,”
of course, is the Holy Spirit. It fills
the body with buoyancy. It is like a
balloon inflated with helium. The body
becomes alive and life -giving. It acts with
patience, kindness, generosity, etc.
The Holy Spirit has been imparted to us in Baptism and
fortified by the Eucharist. It enables
us to be more than loving children and good neighbors. It prepares us for self-sacrifice like Christ’s
for those whom we have never met or seen.
