THE STRUCTURE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS


TUESDAY, TWENTY NINTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

Rom 5:12,15,17-21; Ps 40:7-10,17; Lk 12:35-38

Readiness for Grace from Jesus Christ

Just as by our natural birth we all participate or inherit the original sin of Adam and Eve, and the proneness to sin, which is disobedience to God’s will, by our spiritual rebirth through the salvific work of Jesus Christ, we participate in the grace won by the perfect obedience of the Son of Man. As we have stated in our previous reflection, God’s abiding presence was connatural to his creatures before the fall of Adam and Eve. God’s grace was not lacking to them for their growth in knowledge and development of God’s likeness before they chose the way of death. Their choice to know death and walk the path of darkness, deprived them of the grace of God, as God forewarned them. They and their progenies enjoyed a minimal presence of grace. They eked out their livelihood through a cursed earth that yielded thorns and brambles in place of good fruits enhanced with the grace of God to sustain their natural life. From this sinful condition we got used to doing things our way, and having our way. The natural structures refined through time and used to overcome natural challenges now pose a formidable hurdle or obstacle for the believers. Conversion to spiritual life requires waiting for the revelation and comprehension of God’s will before we act in any circumstance of life. Though the inflow of grace is continuous as in the original state of creation, but we need to develop the structures for our steady cooperation with the grace of God. This is no mean challenge for the faithful.

Because we carry a body fashioned in sin and habituated in the sinful or wilful operations, learning the obedience of faith is not a mean difficulty for the new converts. It is to lessen this difficulty and help us to gradually change our allegiance from flesh and fleshly desires to the spirit and spiritual desires that God made promises of physical goods or inheritance to us. By attracting us with the promises of temporal wellbeing, God gradually purifies our desire for passing things to replace it with the desire for eternal goods or inheritance. The change from temporal wellbeing to spiritual or eternal wellbeing is a passage from sight to faith, from natural strength and skills to grace. The process brings about our spiritual birth, growth, and development. “Sin entered the world through one man, and through sin death, and thus death has spread through the whole human race because everyone has sinned; but the gift itself considerably outweighed the fall. If it is certain that through one man’s fall so many died, it is even more certain that divine grace, coming through the one man, Jesus Christ, came to so many as an abundant free gift.” Hence, divine grace is freely given in abundance to us through Jesus Christ. The only cause of our problem and difficulty in leaving freely in grace is the challenge of growing the spiritual structures needed for easy use of the abundant grace. Saint Paul explains that the needed structure will come through Jesus Christ. “Just as sin reigned wherever there was death, so grace will reign to bring eternal life thanks to the righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

The new spiritual structure we need to harness grace is that of righteousness, which will come through Jesus Christ, according Paul. So, it is not a structure of righteousness coming from the practice of the Law, but from faith in Jesus Christ. We gain this righteousness, which is a spiritual structure, not by practicing or keeping the Commandments, but believing in the salvific death of Jesus Christ. The righteousness belongs to Jesus Christ through his obedience to the Father till his death on the cross, but we receive it in our spirit by our profession of faith in his divinity, incarnation, death, and resurrection. The process is similar to our inheritance of death and the structure of death from Adam and Eve. We inherit spiritual life and the spiritual structure from Jesus Christ by subsuming ourselves in his sacrificial obedience. Thus, our new spirits are characterised by a steady consciousness of Jesus Christ and his sacrificial death for us. Our Lord implies this in the Gospel. “See that you are dressed for action and have your lamps lit. Be like men waiting for their master to return from the wedding feast, ready to open the door as soon as he comes and knocks. Happy those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes.” Subsequently, living in grace is living in constant awareness of Jesus Christ. The responsory of the psalm is our watch word: “Here I am, Lord! I come to do your will.”

Let us pray: Almighty ever-living God, grant that we may always conform our will to yours and serve your majesty in sincerity of heart. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.     

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