There is a tendency in our culture to separate the mind from the body, as if the mind is who we really are, while our body is merely a machine that we move wherever we want. Even some Christians would go so far as to say that as long as man believes that Jesus is Lord, he is saved, regardless of what he does with his body. But this is not the vision of the human person found in the Sacred Scripture or the tradition of the Church. Instead, the human person is a union of spiritual and physical realities, mind and body, soul and flesh. So, what a man does with his body can be a physical sign of the state of his heart and his progress in the spiritual life. Writing to the Church in Rome, St. Paul says that before faith in Christ, before grace and baptism, the Roman Christians were slaves to sin. St. Paul calls them, and now us as well, to be slaves of God instead, to serve righteousness and holiness with our whole life, our whole person, with our body and our soul.
The Gospel speaks of the Centurion’s faith. A spiritual interpretation of the passage could suggest that when a man turns his heart, and all its thoughts, over to the Lord, he will hand himself over to become a servant of holiness and righteousness and be spiritually healed. If he turns to the Lord often with prayer, and embraces the good thoughts and ignores evil thoughts, he will easily be able to take command of his unruly body with its passions. Just as the Lord performs miracles by the command of His Word, and the centurion commands his soldiers and servants with his word, likewise, we can offer our bodies and our whole life to bear the fruit of sanctification and holiness. We have two choices: we can be slaves to sin and receive the wages of sin, which is death, hell, and spiritual suffering, or we can repent and become slaves to righteousness, be made right before God, and this will lead us into life everlasting. From godwithusonline.org
Saturday, June 19 –
