forecast: cloud of concupiscence with 100% shower of grace

Romans 7:18-25; Ps 119 Lord, teach me your statues; Luke 12:54-59

we can’t change yesterday or forecast tomorrow. All we have is the present. How will you spend it?

Hear the words of St. Paul from todays reading, "The willing is ready at hand, but the doing the good is not... I discover the principle that when I want to do good, evil is at hand...I see in my members another principle at war with the law of my mind, taking me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members...Who will deliver me from this mortal body?"


Talk about a ominous forecast painted by the spiritual meteorologist, St. Paul.

It reminds of my little nephew. He is a first grader. He is is trouble a lot at school. His dad, my brother, sat him down and asked him why he is always getting into to trouble at school, and his response is classic St. Paul, "Daddy, I am a good boy but my mind tells me to do bad things."

Even at 7 years old, we experience what St. Paul speaks about and describes so well in this 7th chapter of Romans.

There is often a seemingly great chasm between what we ought to do and what we actually do. A sense of helplessness rise to overwhelm us in this endless struggle.

The theological term for this reality described by Paul is "Concupiscence" which is the inclination of fallen man to misuse free will in sinful and selfish ways. It manifest itself in a unremitting desire for pleasure, power, and possessions.

What is the answer?

St. Paul will go on to teach us in Romans 8, "You are in the Spirit, if the Spirit of God dwells in you....If Christ is in you, although your bodies are dead because of sin, your spirits are alive because of righteousness...you have received the spirit of sonship. when we cry Abba! Father!It is the spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order to be glorified with him."


Our resolutions are often inadequate but in faith through baptism, we have the resolution of christ flowing through our bodies. We do not struggle alone. Christ fights in us and with us. THis is our hope for glory.

THis is why it is so important that we remember our date of baptism and celebrate it annually. There in lies the hope for the journey. We do not go alone. Christ is alive in us. THis makes all the difference.

Though we may fail time and time again, if we cling to Christ then we shall always have the strength to rise anew and begin to move forward in the present moment. We shake off the dust of disappointment and frustration that clings us and we say boldly with St. Paul, "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord."