Tuesday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time

Saint Paul of the Cross

 Lectionary: 474

But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have become near by the Blood of Christ.
For he is our peace, he made both one and broke down the dividing wall of enmity, through his Flesh,
abolishing the law with its commandments and legal claims,
that he might create in himself one new person in place of the two,

When I visited the city and parish jails in Jennings, Louisiana, I often recalled Saint Paul's assurance that the Lord has broken down the dividing wall that keeps convicted persons imprisoned long after they have been released from jail. 

One fellow broke parole when he and a buddy, far from any city, house, or county road, plinked at a tin can with a .22 pistol. Somehow the story got around and he landed in jail again. He had not yet learned that, "Consumers get whatever they want; but convicts are not consumers." He had felt and acted like a consumer. Big Mistake! 

The dividing wall would remain between him and freedom for many years, or at least until he would discover the peace of which Saint Paul wrote. Some people, even in solitary confinement, read their King James Bible and discover that grace. They... 

"...are no longer strangers and sojourners; 

they are fellow citizens with the holy ones 

and members of the household of God.... 

But their captors may remain imprisoned in their sin. 

When Saint Paul wrote this passage to the Galatians, he was thinking of the barrier that the Pharisees enforced with their misguided understanding of God's law -- the social, religious barrier between Jews and gentiles. But it is the same barrier between consumers and convicts, aliens and citizens, Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals. 

It may be reinforced with barbed wire, explosive mines, and concrete walls but its foundation is hatred. Humans believe they need it. They expect it, and demand it one of another. 

In today's gospel Jesus says, "Blessed are those servants whom the master finds vigilant on his arrival." They are the ones who heard Saint Paul's stern reminder to the Galatians:

For freedom Christ set us free; so stand firm and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.