25/10/2023

St Paul's letter to the Roman's continues as this morning's first reading.

 We all have to live without sinning. For Paul this true life. His conversion on the road to Damascus had, for him, been a "death". His new life is the free gift of Faith; Christ living in him. The Resurrection is now his own life. 

His righteous holiness is not a product of the Law, outward restrictions that contain him as does a strait jacket, but comes from his own soul which has been filled directly from Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

We must not confuse this presence of interior grace, spiritual freedom from sin, as a "freedom" to sin. We are now all free to choose our way of life; the bodily life of the Word, His death and Resurrection has destroyed the power over us that sin has had since the Fall.

St Paul calls us "slaves of Righteousness" but that is more rhetoric than truth. We can make ourselves "slaves to sin" but "Righteousness" is the " glorious freedom of the sons of God".

Jesus tells us that we all live bodily lives in the Providence of the Father, the "master" in this morning's parable, but He warns us that it is we who direct our own lives. God has revealed himself to the whole World but it is God who knows and loves each one of us as "My Father" in heaven. Let us know him as pure Goodness and live every moment in the responsible reality that it is to be known by God.

Dear Lord, hear the prayer of my heart and let my words come from the soul that is the spirit of my being. let me be captured to do your will as was Saul on the way to persecute you. May your Mother lead all the Saints in prayer that we the living on earth can know that sin only succeeds in our lives because we let it. Let us all become righteous and respond only to your grace and may all the souls awaiting your pardon pay for their sins with the grace that is made available by the Sacrifice of Calvary.