Paul Speaks to Us in Armonk
Most of the summer, we have been hearing excerpts from Paul’s mighty Letter to the Romans. The letter is dated approximately 55 AD. Paul was sending a letter of self-introduction to the Christian community that had begun as early as 40 AD, about 10 years after Easter. In the letter, Paul stresses several important themes that Roman Catholics, almost 2,000 years later, need to hear and integrate into our daily lives with God’s Help. If we rehearse these themes again, our recitation of the Letter to the Romans will be even more beneficial.
Paul speaks to his Roman audience, both Jewish Christian and Gentile Christian, about the faithfulness or righteousness of God to all whom God created. He quotes the Psalm 117, “Praise God, all you nations, glorify the Lord, all you peoples, for steadfast is God’s kindness to us and the fidelity of God endures forever.”
We thank God for God’s fidelity to us because all of us stand in need of God’s forgiveness, for all of us have sinned. Yet, God forgives us and gives us the Strength to resist evil if we want. God’s constancy is reflected in the necessary constant infusion of the Spirit to all of us baptized into the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Our intimacy with God is through our baptism into Christ, through Whom and in Whom and with Whom we live from moment to moment to moment. This intimacy with the Faithful God is something which unites us with Jesus Christ, the Second Adam, the New Adam. Just as all of us are children of the First Adam who sinned, we share in Adam’s heritage. For the Christian, we are conformed to the Image of the Second Adam and share His destiny.
Our response to this faithful and gracious God is the liturgy of our daily life. We are asked to offer our existence in Christ to God 60-60-24-7-365 as a liturgical sacrifice of thanksgiving for God’s Faithfulness, manifested in the death and Resurrection of Christ and the Gift of the Holy Spirit to all baptized into Christ. Daily, kneel beside your bed as you arise and ask God to make you aware that the day ahead will be spent in and through and with God in Christ Jesus. (Don’t forget the Prayer for Peace as well, the first of 5x each day.)
However, the faithful God Who has joined us to the Body of Christ and the Life of the Spirit is also the God Who raises the dead. Stakes are higher than any of us imagine. “Eye has not seen; ear has not heard what God has in store for those who love God.”
Paul continues to speak to Jesus’ people in
