The Self-Awareness of a Saint
“There comes a time when you look into the mirror and you realize that what you see is all that you will ever be. And then you accept it. Or you kill yourself. Or you stop looking in mirrors.” ~ Tennessee Williams
If only we all could possess the same sense of self-awareness that Saint Paul exhibits in today’s 1st Reading (Romans 7:18-25) as he expounds upon sin in the context of the brittle and frail human condition.
“I know that good does not dwell in me,” he bluntly states. “The willing is ready at hand, but doing the good is not. For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want.” Yes, his frustration is palpable, but it is his next statement that proves he has a keen grasp of his proclivity towards sin and the driving force behind it.
“Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.“ Paul knows full well that he is powerless in the face of sin, yet he knows the anecdote, the path to freedom through forgiveness, a forgiveness rooted in genuine repentance, isn’t his to blaze alone.
Who will deliver me from this mortal body?“ he asks in almost rhetorical fashion in the waning words of this passage. “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Paul accepts the fact that evil is ubiquitous, always at the ready to thwart his most ardent and steadfast determination to live a holy life. The evil one and his cast of demons is relentless, prowling around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8). Unlike those who Jesus chastises in today’s Gospel (Luke 13:54-59), Paul knows all too well what lies right before his very eyes in the fallen world he has been called to evangelize. He calls it precisely as he sees it, and it ain’t pretty.
But it is in today’s passage that Paul’s prolific letter to the Romans, arguably the crown jewel of his prophetic efforts, takes a decided turn. It is here where Paul goes from measured theologian to passionate believer in the turn of a phrase, using his own personal faith journey to preach the joy of salvation through the grace of God and the word made flesh, Jesus the very Son of God.
We too must accept the fact that sin dwells within us. Furthermore, in a world where vice is now virtue and confusion reigns supreme, oftentimes as we’ve seen this past week even within the hierarchy of our very church, we must turn to God with a repentant heart, eager to allow Jesus and his Blessed Mother Mary, our co-redemptrix, to lead us by the hand down the path of truth that leads to eternal heavenly glory.
“Search me, O God, and know my heart. Test me and know my thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” Psalm 139:23-23
