Readings for the 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time:
Exodus 19:2-6a | Romans 5:6-11 | Matthew 9:36—10:8
On Romans 5:6-11
St. Paul is, perhaps, one of the most influential people in the world, or at least in the West. His letters comprise about two-thirds of the New Testament. The jewel of these letters, one which has inspired the deepest theological reflection, is the letter to the Romans. This letter has sparked the Christian imagination from its writing, and has served as a key scriptural witness in different crucial periods of Church history, for instance with St. Augustine and with Martin Luther.
Over the summer and into the fall, we will reflect on St. Paul’s letter to the Romans. Starting this Sunday, June 14, and ending September 13, the second reading for Sunday Mass will be from the letter to the Romans. It seems to me that it is difficult for most people to understand what St. Paul is saying when we get only a small snippet of his letter. Indeed, the first time Romans appears as the second reading, we get only a portion of Romans 5. We do not get, at least in Mass, the first four chapters of Romans. We get no context. This affects how we understand and appreciate the selections of Romans that we hear in the liturgy. As we explore the letter to the Romans this summer, I suggest you read the whole letter prayerfully.
Romans offers St. Paul’s liberating message about grace, justification, and glorious freedom. If we take in St. Paul’s message and experience contained in the epistle, our lives will be transformed. St. Paul aims only to share the Gospel, which is not just an assemblage of ideas but an experience of God. To explore the epistle to the Romans is to open oneself to the radical and gratuitous grace of God that fulfills us, frees us, and brings us true joy.
Therefore, we will explore St. Paul’s letter to the Romans every week until September 13. We begin with some background, and then we will address the reading from Romans for this Sunday: Romans 5:6-11.
In the year 57, Paul wrote to the Romans while he was staying in Corinth. He is writing them for several reasons: to summarize his Gospel, to enlist support when he visits Jerusalem, to ask their support for his mission to Spain, to introduce himself and dispel any doubts about him or his Gospel, and to help resolve tensions between Jewish and Gentile Christians. The main theme of Romans is that all have access to the gratuitous love of God revealed in Christ by faith. When we discover the divine love, we are gloriously free.
Jesuit and scripture scholar Brendan Byrne writes, “Paul writes to set the record straight, to give an accurate account of the Gospel as he proclaims and understands it, and to address false impressions that some in the community may hold concerning his views on various issues.” Paul wants to share “the gospel of God” (Romans 1:1). The Letter to the Romans deals with the Good News of God; it is theocentric. Throughout the letter, Paul keeps returning to the kindness and incomprehensibility of God. He tells us that the divine gratuitousness is manifested in the death and resurrection of Jesus. He reminds us we all have sinned; we are trapped in sin and cannot free ourselves. But God justifies us, which means God acquits us of all guilt and sin forever, even before we are ever born and can sin. Paul affirms that faith in the divine gratuitousness frees us for divine glory. This is the great theme of Romans: we are justified by faith. We discover our oneness with God – divine love – when we trust in God and move beyond our minds.
In today’s second reading, Paul writes, “But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us. How much more then, since we are now justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath” (Romans 5:8-9). The Good News concerns Jesus risen from the dead: God’s proof of divine love for us. Christ on the cross reveals the true nature of God who is gratuitous, incomprehensible, transcendent love. For Paul, when we accept the divine love in faith we are gloriously free.
Paul contrasts the law with faith in the divine love, in radical and profligate grace. He contends that we must transcend the law by trusting in the inexhaustible grace of God: “we have been justified by faith… through [Jesus] we have gained access [by faith] to this grace in which we stand (Romans 5:1-2). He announces that all are loved by God without judgment and become free when we enjoy it, that is, when we let go of our thinking and surrender – even when our lives feel messy – to “the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the holy Spirit that has been given to us” (Romans 5:5).