2nd Sunday Ordinary Time (B) 14 Jan 2024 Body and soul
Sometimes people wonder why Adam and Eve were punished so heavily for just one sin. After all, anyone can make a mistake!
It becomes clearer when we realize that before the sin Adam had perfect control of all his thoughts and feelings; he did not suffer from the sort of weakness we experience now.
So the sin he committed was far more serious than it seems to us. It was a major breach of the established order which he knew. It was not just a matter of ‘eating an apple’.
Because of that sin the harmony the human race had enjoyed was shattered. From that time on flesh and spirit would be at war with each other, and concupiscence (sinful desire, tendency to sin) would be a dominant presence.
This is why we experience, as even St Paul did (Romans 7,18-19) that conflict between what we mean to do and what we actually do. We make good resolutions, then find that we cannot carry them out. We do not have full control of our desires and actions.
Should we despair of this? No need. We have a remedy for disordered desires, and that remedy is Jesus Christ.
He was the Second Adam, the New Man. He restored to us the fully integrated human nature possessed by Adam before the sin.
Jesus Himself was sinless. This means not only that He kept all the various rules and commandments, but He did so easily. It was easy because He had perfect control over all His thoughts, words, actions. He was not struggling to keep the rules – it came ‘naturally’.
Natural, because Jesus was able, without effort, to want the same things as God wanted.
We tend to view commandments as an imposition, as hard to keep, and not very desirable either. We are not allowed to do certain things we do want to do, and told we must do certain other things we do not want to do.
If we had what Jesus had, we would never see God’s commands as a burden, but as a delight. ‘Lord, how I love Your law’ (Ps 119, 97).
We can come to this same state by joining ourselves to Jesus. This is what we do when we pray, or receive a Sacrament, and especially at Mass.
We are transformed as we draw closer to Him, study His word, pray to Him. We take on His mind, His heart, His very nature.
We cannot be divine but we can be human, and Jesus was both. We become human as He was human, fully obedient to God, fully integrated, a ‘whole’ person (another way of saying ‘holy’).
Salvation is not just a keeping of a whole set of rules, arbitrarily imposed on us. It is a becoming of the person each of us is meant to be.
We realize we have not been deprived of anything by being Christian, but actually enriched. We are the lucky ones to come so close to the heart of all truth and beauty.
The closer we come to Him the better it gets.
So we joyfully answer His call as demonstrated in the first reading (Samuel) and the Gospel (Andrew and Peter).
In the second reading, (1 Corinthians 6) the Church’s sexual teaching, so much criticised and questioned, is seen to make sense, as being the proper understanding of body and soul.
Once again the passions and desires are able to be controlled and channelled according to our true human identity.
Critics of the Church will say we are out of date. No, we are ahead of the times, being able to find a remedy for disordered passions, and reclaiming holiness of life as the new normal.
May we come to share in the divinity of Christ, who humbled Himself to share in our humanity (Offertory prayer at Mass)
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