Christ died for us

Romans 5:6-11

Okay, I did not preach this Sunday. Therfore, I can once again focus on the second, or "epistle," reading. This week's second reading is from Saint Paul's Letter to the Romans.

Unlike the apostle's other letters to various churches (Corithians, Philippians, Ephesians, Colossians, Thessalonians), his Letter to the Romans is not to a Church he founded. The Church in Rome, where Saint Peter is venerated as first bishop, was already extant. Paul's reason for writing to the Christians of Rome was that, having appealed his case to the emperor, which was his right as a Roman citizen, he was making his way there as a prisoner of the state.

Because of the circumstances leading to his missive, the apostle does not comment on matters within the Roman Christian community nor seek to correct anything. What we have in Romans, considered to be the final text of the authentically Pauline corpus, is what can best be described as the Church's earliest systematic exposition of Christian soteriology. In some respects, what we have in Romans is a more mature statement of fundamental matters Paul first wrote about in his Letter to the Philippians.

Our passage for this Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, taken from the fifth chapter of Romans, is best prefaced by verse twenty-three of the third chapter of Romans: "all have sinned and are deprived of the glory of God." It is sin, which is best defined as the failure to love God with your entire being and to love your neighbor as you love yourself, that makes us, to use Paul's word, ἀσεβής.

ἀσεβής transliterates as asebés. Asebés has a range of meaning from irreverent to impious to wicked. All of these are, of course, "ungodly."

Despite our impiety and even our wickedness, God still loves us. He proves (not proved- past tense) his love for us that wicked though we be, "Christ died for us." Now, it would be going too far to say that God loves us because of our sinfulness. Yet, it does not go far enough to say that God loves us inspite of our wicked ways. It is our sinfulness that makes us like sheep without a shepherd. It is this that also moves the Sacred Heart of Jesus so deeply.

I was reminded of this earlier this week when a friend posted something on Faceook written by the late Father Herbert McCabe:

Sin doesn’t alter God’s attitude to us; it alters our attitude to him, so that we change him from the God who is simply love and nothing else into this punitive ogre, this Satan. Sin matters enormously to us if we are sinners; it does not matter at all to God. In a fairly literal sense, he doesn’t give a damn about our sin. It is we who give damns (Faith Within Reason, pg. 157)

What McCabe wrote strikes me as a great exposition of this Pauline passage.

This brings me to a fundamental aspect of the teaching of Pope Francis, something so fundamental to understanding him that if not grasped confusion ensues. In his lengthy interview with his fellow Jesuit, Father Anthony Spadoro shortly after becoming Pope, Francis, when asked who he was, led with this:

I do not know what might be the most fitting description…. I am a sinner. This is the most accurate definition. It is not a figure of speech, a literary genre. I am a sinner (See "A Big Heart Open to God")

I am going to say it, without this acknowledgement, you cannot be a Christian. But this is not enough. To be a Christian, you must also realize that you are a loved sinner, one for whom Christ died.

To be a Christian, then, is to be a grateful recipient of God's mercy given us in Christ. You can't receive divine mercy if you don't realize your need for it. The Holy Spirit is the medium through which mercy is given and received.

Being a grateful recipient of God's mercy means having the desire for everyone to experience it. A big part of Pope Francis' teaching and witness was to flesh out what this means in terms of living one's life and sharing one's faith in a convincing way.

Even now among many Catholics, the belief that you earn your salvation through good works persists. Well, you don't and you can't. But you can easily drive yourself and others nuts by desperately holding onto and living from such a futile belief. Living from such a belief quickly reduces Christianity to banal moralism. Especially early on in his pontificate, Francis took aim at this tendency with both barrels.

It is Christ and Christ alone who, while we are irreverent, impious, and at times even wicked, reconciles us to God. This is an ongoing work until the Lord returns. This is what it means when we say in the context of the liturgy, "We proclaim your death, O Lord/And profess your resurrection/Until you come again."

As Saint Paul implies, reconciliation with God through Christ is a gift. Hence, it can only be "received." Truly receiving this amazing gift makes one deeply grateful. "Eucharist," after all, means thanksgiving. It is from gratefulness that good works flow. A Christian attitude is one of gratitude.