Optional Memorial of Saint John Paul II, Pope

 Lectionary: 475

...present yourselves to God as raised from the dead to life
and the parts of your bodies to God
as weapons for righteousness.
For sin is not to have any power over you,
since you are not under the law but under grace.

Several years ago a comedian made the nation howl with laughter as he claimed, 'The devil made me do it!" If it weren't true enough to stand up in court, it explained a lot of stupid things we all do. 

"I didn't mean to; it wasn't my fault; I couldn't help it; they set me up; I meant something else; I didn't mean it that way:" and on and on. There are, at last count, a million ways to deny responsibility; and many of them seem plausible at the time. "The devil made me do it" is as good as any other explanation. 

When Saint Paul considers our life in the Spirit of Jesus Christ, he uses a military metaphor; that is, "weapons." If you're handling a weapon, you'd better be very careful, and no one knows that better than the military. When my Dad let his son handle a new BB gun, and I accidentally pointed it toward him -- for only a second -- the United States Marine barked at me, "Don't ever aim a gun at anyone unless you mean to shoot him!" There is never an excuse for mishandling a weapon. 

"...present yourselves to God as raised from the dead to life and the parts of your bodies to God as weapons for righteousness." 

Saint Paul insisted upon the sanctity of our human bodies, especially because we have been incorporated into the Risen Body of Jesus through Baptism and Eucharist: 

"Do you not know that your body is a temple of the holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been purchased at a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body."

We should be at least as careful about our bodies as a Marine is about his rifle, and a fighter pilot, about his aircraft. It is dangerous, beautiful, powerful, and extraordinarily expensive. And if warriors in retreat are notorious for leaving billions of dollars worth of equipment behind, we should never think of our bodies as expendable. Unlike the soldier's rifle, we cannot abandon our bodies to the enemy. 

Rather, as the Lord Jesus and his martyrs have shown, our risen, battle-scarred bodies -- still bearing the marks of the nails -- testify to who we are and the integrity of the Gospel. We are living proof of the Truth which we declare to the world. 

"For sin is not to have any power over you, since you are not under the law but under grace."

I remember Father Germain -- God rest his soul -- who used to say, "The Holy Spirit took hold of my tongue and I said nothing!" If he had thought of a reply, and wanted to say it, he credited it to the Holy Spirit that nothing came out of his mouth, and no harm was done. 

We pray daily, and many times a day, that our thoughts and feelings -- and especially our impulses -- will be directed by the Holy Spirit, and never by the comedian's devil.