Meditation for Friday the 29th
Week in Ordinary Time, Year B
(Rm 7:18-25; Lk 12:54-59)
The human will
is powerful and visionary. But it is a mystery how it can become powerless in
the face of temptation. We always will and desire what we perceive to be good.
To do good, and persevere to do good, takes more than mere desire or human
will, for the best of our resolutions may be absent on the day of action!
However, unless we will and desire it, we cannot persevere in good deed. The
question St Paul raises today is: how come we will and desire what we know to
be good, but end up acting directly the opposite, thus contradicting ourselves
and betraying our will. This is like a self-inflicted injury, but it happens;
we regret and feel bad, still we repeat the same thing. “I can will what is
right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do
not want is what I do.”
St Paul argues
that the reason we act contrary to our will is because sin has found a voice
within us; it has mingled with us, lying hidden within, but ready to prop up
its head and demand expression at the moment of action. So, sin and evil, with
their voice of temptation, constitute their own law but lay it closely hidden
to the human conscience. “For I delight in the law of God, in my inmost self,
but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind and making
me captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members.”
How can a man
with such constant internal war rely on his good deeds for justification? It is
the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that grants him victory in the face of
alluring evil, since his good will stands helpless at the moment of action. But
the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ is active, and when mingled with the human
will, brings about our will and desire to reality. This is how the battle is
won!
St John Paul II, pray for us. Amen.
Fr Jude Chinwenwa Nwachukwu, C.Ss.R
Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church
Tedi-Muwo, Lagos.
Friday October 22nd, 2021.
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