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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