Faith

Living by faith, living by grace- Saturday, 28th week in ordinary time- Romans 4: 13, 16-18

For the Jew in Rome and throughout the Roman world, one was justified by God if one kept the Jewish law. It is only through the practice of the law that blessings could flow into one’s life. In short, if you kept the law you were saved and blessed and if you did not, you were damned.

Paul does not buy into this argument and he does not do so flippantly. Before his conversion, Paul was an ardent defendant of the Jewish law. He himself had studied under the Gamaliel who was held in great esteem by all Jews. But now Paul realizes the futility of holding on to the view that one is justified through the law.

Paul now acknowledges that the law could not save him; only faith in Jesus did and so he wishes to make his case to the Jews. To make his case, Paul turns to the champion of Jewish faith, Abraham. For the Jews, Abraham was their father in faith and they believed that Abraham was justified because he kept the law; not so says Paul.

Paul looks at the evidence in the Pentateuch. In Genesis 15 it is the faith of Abraham that was counted as uprightness. It is much later in chapter 17 that Abraham was circumcised and that too as a “sign of the covenant”. Paul argues that circumcision has nothing to do with justification. So in simple words Abraham was made righteous because he believed in God’s promise first. Circumcision came later as a sign between Yahweh and Abraham’s family.

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Faith

Amazing Grace- Friday, 28th week in ordinary time- Romans 4: 1- 8

St Paul, in chapter three, discusses the issue of Righteousness through faith. He states that the “righteousness of God is through faith in Jesus Christ, for all who believe.” (3: 22) . Because of sin we have fallen short of the glory of God but BY HIS GRACE we are justified. For Paul this grace is a gift given through Jesus Christ and not something that we have merited.

So Paul tackles two issues. The first is that sin cannot exist in the presence of God, who is justice and good. The problem that arises is, if sin is worth nothing what happens to the sinner? In His love, God found a way by which he destroys sin and saves the sinner. He makes the sinner ‘right’ again, that is to say, righteous or just. That is why from ancient times, salvation has been called justification. We are justified through Jesus and this is an unmerited grace. Secondly, that this grace is for all, not just for the Jews but for Gentiles also.

Paul argues that this principle of unmerited grace was operative already in the New Testament and uses Abraham and David as examples. Abraham was reckoned as upright because of his faith and not because of his circumcision. As a result he is our father in faith. The Jews boast was that they were descendants of Abraham whom they held was an observer of the law. They spoke of his “deeds”; for example, his defeat of the kings in Genesis 14 or of his trial in Genesis 22 as a source of his uprightness.

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Faith

 Feast of St Luke the evangelist.

St Luke whose feast we celebrate today was a companion of St Paul and was his fellow worker. His name means “bringer of light”. We find three scriptural references to St Luke in the letters of St Paul and from them we can safely conclude that Luke was a particularly intimate and faithful companion.

Besides writing the Gospel, he is also the author of the Acts of the Apostles. The Acts of the Apostles covers a period stretching from A.D. 33 to A.D. 60 and together with the Gospel, Luke is responsible for penning 38,000 words, or 24% of the whole New Testament.

But St Luke also had another job, he was the “the beloved physician”; he was as a medical practitioner and that is why he is the patron of doctors among others. But Luke is also the patron of artists. “According to tradition he was an artist, as well as a man of letters; and with a soul alive to all the most delicate inspirations, he consecrated his pencil to the holiest use, and handed down to us the features of the Mother of God. It was an illustration worthy of the Gospel which relates to the divine Infancy; and it won for the artist a new title to the gratitude of those who never saw Jesus and Mary in the flesh. Hence St. Luke is the patron of Christian art.” (1)

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For I am not ashamed- Tuesday, 28th Week in ordinary time- Romans 1: 16- 25

The reading of today is power packed and clear; the Gospel is THE powerful source of Salvation for all and which discloses God’s uprightness (not to be misunderstood as self-righteous). The JBC well describes the Gospel as not just a message or philosophy or a thought system to be learned but it is the “story of the cross”.

Writing to the Romans, Paul primarily acknowledges the privilege of Israel; for to them the Messiah was promised and hence it is right that this message is first disclosed to the Jews. But God’s word is also revealed to all of humanity so that through it they may also come to knowledge of the truth and share by faith God’s salvation.

The uprightness of God is that divine quality which acquits His people and shows them His gracious power in a just judgment. The Gospel is thus a means whereby this aspect of God is revealed. Paul asserts that without the Gospel the Jew does not succeed in achieving the uprightness before God, despite the advantage of possessing the Mosaic Law.

Where does that leave us? The Gospel is thus to be preached and lived in season and out of season. Through it God brings about his saving work in our lives. Yet we often sense that the world around us rejects the Gospel and its values. Human philosophy stands in pale contrast to God’s message and rational arguments may dazzle the mind but can never satisfy the soul.

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Faith

Called to Belong – Monday, 28th Week in ordinary time- Romans 1: 1-7

From our reflections on post exilic prophecy, the first readings now shifts once again to Pauline writings; this time to the Romans. Paul wrote this letter shortly before he made his last trip to Jerusalem. Some suggest that he wrote it in Corinth or in Cenchreae, both Greek cities, sometime in the winter of AD 57- 58.

Paul’s letter to the Romans is a letter of introduction and as an announcement of his visit to Rome. This is not a community he has evangelized and hence is unfamiliar with. Paul’s letter to the Romans is meant to be his reflections on the salvific love of God, offered to humanity, through faith in Jesus Christ.

Paul had laboured much in the Eastern Mediterranean region and now sets his eyes on Spain but before that he decided to make a stopover in Rome. Paul had made a collection from the Gentile Christians of Galatia and Macedonia. This collection was meant to be a sign of solidarity between the Gentile Churches and the poor in Jerusalem.

Paul’s letter is also necessitated by a change in the social order. Up unto this time the Jewish Christians were always the dominant group; the Gentile Christians came a poor second. All this changed, when in 49 AD the Emperor Claudius commanded the Jews and Jewish Christians to leave Rome. It was the Gentile Christians who remained and steered the faith community much to the surprise of the Jewish Christians, who at the death of Claudius in 54 AD, returned to find the Gentile Christians now at the helm of things; among them a change in dietary and calendric regulations.

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