"I DO NOT DO THE GOOD I WANT."

Homily for Oct. 23rd, 2013: Romans 7:18-25a

          “I do not do the good I want,” Paul writes in our first reading, “but I do the evil I do not want.” Which of us could not say the same? Paul is stating something about human nature, and our common human experience, which, several centuries later, came to be called “original sin.” Original sin is not a sin which has never been committed before. Such a sin does not exist. All the sins there are have all been committed years, even centuries, ago.

          “Original sin” is something that comes to us in our origin, as sons and daughters of Adam and Eve. They were created by God to live in happy harmony with their Creator, the Lord God. God placed them in a garden, a symbol of order, beauty, and tranquility. Misunderstanding their Creator as jealous of his prerogatives, and wanting to be like God, they disobeyed God’s command and, in consequence, lost the original goodness and holiness they had received from God. Moreover, this loss was not only for themselves, but for all their descendants, ourselves included. This loss, the Catechism says, is called “original sin.”

As a result of original sin, the Catechism goes on to say, “human nature is weakened in its powers; subject to ignorance, suffering and the domination of death; and inclined to sin.” (Nos. 417f).  It is this flaw or weakness in our nature which Paul is talking about when he says in our first reading, that though he wants to do good, and recognizes that he should do good – yet nevertheless he does evil time and again. Which of us has not experienced the same in our own lives?

          Grieving over this defect or flaw in our nature, Paul cries out: “Miserable one that I am! Who will deliver me from this mortal body?” Only to add at once that there is someone who does bring us deliverance: God himself, through his Son Christ Jesus. “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord,” Paul cries out.

          The Catechism says that “the victory that Christ won over sin has given us greater blessings than those which sin had taken from us (No. 420). With Paul, then, we too cry out: “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”