Each Sunday, according to our current lectionary, the second reading at Mass follows its own cycle: independent of the cycle of Gospel readings. This year, from weeks 9 to 24 - that is, over 16 consecutive Sundays - we read brief extracts from St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans. Today’s passage from Romans Chapter 8 is fraught with enormous significance and importance. Paul is here pulling together the threads of his argument so far.
The remote context is the very dismal view of the human condition, and human sinfulness, that Paul set out in his early Chapters. The immediate context is his statement, in the verse before our passage today begins (v.17), that if we would be glorified with Christ, we have first to suffer with him. Paul now sets out to comment on all that. Let me note at once that behind Paul’s thought here lies the story of Adam in Genesis, with the curse on the ground that followed his sin (Gn 3:17). Paul also clearly has in mind Psalm 8, which asks: what is the Son of Adam that you care for him? ... You have crowned him with glory and honour. Of course for Paul this son of Adam is supremely Jesus Christ, and the glory that crowns him is that of the resurrection.
I think ... (v. 18) says St. Paul. Do you find your current troubles and sufferings a stumbling block? When you consider the whole problem of moral and physical evil, are you somehow tempted to doubt that God is in control? Well: just listen now! Let the door to understanding swing open; let the light come flooding in; let the vista open up, to its breathtakingly magnificent horizons. Now, in the certainty given by the Holy Spirit, St. Paul sets out for us how God’s purpose or plan, from the beginning, is brought to its perfect fulfilment; and how this is all utterly, thrillingly, wonderful, for our triumphant joy, and for God’s ever more abundant glory.
In the brief passage we read today, Christ’s name is never mentioned. But he is present throughout. He is the reference point for our present suffering. Even more, he is the risen one, whose glory radiates out over the whole cosmos. He is the second Adam. That is, he does not just reverse the catastrophe of the first - oh no, far better than that! - he takes it all up, and turns it all into glory. Jesus Christ is the one in whom we have redemption, and adoption as children of God. He is the source of the Holy Spirit. He is the answer, the key. He gives meaning not just to our own lives, but to absolutely everything whatever. In him we see how we now stand - how all things now stand - in a state of tension: between condemnation and glory; between primordial failure and final restoration; between harsh slavery and ultimate freedom.
For St. Paul, humanity without Christ is bound in a state of four-fold slavery: slavery to sin, slavery to the law, slavery to corruption, and slavery to death. And the whole of creation shares in our fallen-ness, for all things are addicted to corruption, and all things are heading towards their ultimate dissolution. No modern secularist would deny that. But what they don’t know, we do know: that creation itself is to be redeemed, for the sake of redeemed humanity. For us who are in Christ, this liberation has already begun, but is not yet complete. We have its first fruits in the Holy Spirit; our pledge, or foretaste, of what is to come. That will reach its completion when our bodies, with all of creation, are raised up incorruptible (cf. 1 Cor 15:52).
St. Paul, incidentally, would surely have no problem agreeing with our modern eco-activists. Yes: the irresponsible pollution of the environment, the destruction of the natural world for the sake of short term profit; cruelty to animals: this is all sheer wickedness. Certainly then we should not abuse this world. But also we shouldn’t absolutise it, far less idolise it, as if it were all there is.
Paul speaks of inanimate creation here as if it were conscious and rational; now groaning as if in labour
pains. That is, present decay and suffering and death is all in view of something new, something wonderful that will come by God’s gift. Rather like an audience or fan club in a sports arena, creation sits, as it were, on the edge of its seat, watching our contest; participating as far as it can; cheering us on, and waiting for its own share in our final victory.
For the Old Testament sage Qoheleth, or Ecclesiastes, the frustration of creation is cause for weary dejection. For St. Paul, it’s all just confirmation, and ever increased grounds for our longing and hope.
Creation groans, and we groan. Our life can seem like a tedious waiting room, or even sometimes a miserable torture chamber. But for a Christian it’s always an arena, a battle ground, a setting for our exercise in faith, hope and love. But all the time we are straining forward towards what is to come. Just after our passage Paul will add a third groaning: that of the Holy Spirit (8:26). Far from palliating our own groaning, the Spirit only intensifies it. Or rather, the indwelling Spirit takes all our troubles, all our longings, all our unanswered questions, and turns them into prayer.
Today is the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Please allow me then to point to her as the supreme jewel and crown of all creation. The Blessed Virgin, spouse of the Holy Spirit, Seat of Wisdom, is the perfect helpmate (Gn 2:18) to the new Adam. Like the Bride in the Song of Songs, she may be compared to Mount Carmel: lovely, and lofty, and fertile (7:6; cf. also e.g. Jer 50:19). Unlike the first Eve, Our Lady remained always unaffected by the lies of Satan, so we depict her now standing with her foot on his head (Gn 3:15, Vg). In her we see what our state would have been had sin not taken place: wholly given to the praise of the Creator. Now already Our Lady is caught up into the new Creation, glorified in both soul and body. Beyond all other creatures whatever she is beautiful; but she is also powerful: terrible as an army in battle array (Song 6:4). According to the Apocalypse of St. John (Apoc 12:2), she is groaning in travail to bring forth her son. That is, although now forever in perfect bliss, she somehow mystically groans as she strains to bring each one of us to our birth into Christ, and into glory.
Our Lady of Mount Carmel is the Patroness especially of all Carmelites, but also surely of all contemplatives; of all souls given to prayer; of all who strive to turn their whole life towards God and towards our eternal home. So today we hail Mary as the flower of Carmel - flos Carmeli - for she brought forth the most blessed fruit of all, who is Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, our Saviour, and our Lord.