Saint John of Capistrano

St John of Capistrano
Patron Saint of Military Chaplains

Lectionary: 475

But thanks be to God that, although you were once slaves of sin, you have become obedient from the heart to the pattern of teaching to which you were entrusted. Freed from sin, you have become slaves of righteousness.


The story is told of the boy who asked his grandfather, "I have two wolves within my heart. One is peaceful and the other is angry. They fight with each other. Which one will win?" 
His grandfather told him, "The one you feed." 

Saint Paul ponders a similar mystery as he considers grace and sin. As baptized Christians we should be "slaves of righteousness." But we can still choose to be slaves of sin, as you once were. 

In The Radiance of Being, Dimensions of Cosmic Christianity, Stratford Caldecott writes,

...the whole world currently seems to believe that freedom grows with the number of options placed before us. But God's love teaches us something different. "Perfect freedom is the total inability to make any evil choice," says Thomas Merton. Therefore the simple definition of freedom is this; it means the ability to do the will of God....

And how do we know the will of God? Jean-Pierre de Caussade reminds us it is revealed to us in every moment of every day. God's words to us take the form of all that we see and hear. They change moment by moment. They are addressed uniquely to us, and call for the unique response that God hopes for.

This is the freedom Saint Paul enjoyed and announced to his people. It is not simply the ability to do good and avoid evil. Which of us always knows the right thing to do under every circumstance? It is rather that willingness to be guided by the Holy Spirit. 
Jesus and his Virgin Mother are the perfect examples of those who want only what God wants. The converse is also true: God wants what Jesus and Mary want. 

Disciplined and trained by the Holy Spirit we learn to act when the Lord says, "Act!" and speak when the Lord says, "Speak!" We learn to wait with the infinite patience of God and to be silent with a holy stillness. We learn to revere all creatures, especially the people with whom we live and work. 

Someone might object, "This is terribly idealistic!" But it is not idealistic in the sense of unrealistic. God knows we can live this way. 

We have seen in Jesus and Mary examples of perfect obedience to God; in the martyrs and saints, examples of wonderful obedience; and in our own lives, moments of true obedience. We can only get better as we learn to hear that word that takes "the form of all that we see and hear."