Flesh vs. Spirit
Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,
I pray that you had a blessed time with family and friends as you gathered to celebrate our nation’s Independence Day. Pray that we Americans never forget the true definition of freedom as revealed by God and that we always strive, through morally valid means, to preserve that kind of freedom.
In the readings for this Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time we hear St. Paul contrast the “flesh” and the “spirit” in his Letter to the Romans. In the Gospel we hear Jesus, after reproaching the unrepentant towns for their rejection of revealed truth, tenderly invite His listeners to come to Him and find rest.
The Letter to the Romans speaks of “the flesh” as a life that is lived in purely worldly ways, without the benefit of what we call “grace,” the life of God’s Spirit at work within us. All works of the flesh are destined toward a merely worldly end – death. But life in “the spirit,” i.e. a life lived in communion with God’s divine life at work in us, is destined for eternal life and a share in the very life of God Himself.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus has just rebuked the towns of Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum for not repenting of their sinful ways. But He follows it up, not with a continuing rebuke, but by a tender and loving invitation to turn to Him. The Lord says, “come to me all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.” He goes on to say, “take my yoke upon you.” He invites His listeners to “learn” from Him.
Jesus is inviting all of us to not live under the heavy yoke or burden of external laws that point out our ongoing failures when we live for merely the things of the world (the flesh). Rather, He invites us to embrace the “yoke” of Jesus, which is an interior Law of Love that nudges us to change our ways in order to please the One we have come to love and in whom we place our trust. It is the difference of obeying because we fear the consequences of a cruel King, versus obeying because we do not want to offend someone we so deeply love. The former yields compliance only with resentment and difficulty, the latter results in submission with joy and relative ease.
Sincerely yours in Christ Jesus, the Way, the Truth and the Life,
