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Month of the Holy Souls II (Day 21)

November 21, 2024

Fr. John Colacino C.PP.S.

Day 21

A reading from the Letter of St. Paul to the Romans (14:7-9)

We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again, so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.

From his Commentary on Romans by Origen of Alexandria

In the exposition of this epistle, we have repeatedly spoken about what it means to live in Christ and what it means to die in Christ. We did this especially in that passage where we attempted to explain the Apostle’s words, But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live together with him. If we call to mind what was said in that passage, then the words the Apostle has set forth in the present passage will become clearer: how none of us lives to himself and no one dies to himself. For no one provides a pattern of death for himself, he takes it from Christ who alone has died for sin, so that he too, by imitation of Christ, can become estranged from sin and dead to it. Moreover, we do not have the pattern of life from ourselves, but we have received it from the resurrection of Christ, as the same Apostle says, In order that, as Christ rose again from the dead through the glory of the Father, so also you might walk in newness of life.

So then, the newness of life by which we live in Christ through faith in his resurrection is attributed to the Lord, since it began with him not with us. And for that reason, whether we live, we live to the Lord; whether we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. He calls “death” that by which we have died to sin, having been buried together with Christ and baptized into his death. And he calls “life” that by which we have become strangers to this world. We who are alive from the dead live not for ourselves, that is for the flesh, but for God, as Paul adds: For to this end Christ died and lived, so that he might be Lord of the dead and the living.

He says that Christ has died, doubtless by the dispensation of suffering; but he lives through the mystery of the resurrection. Whence also he has left a pattern for us: first of suffering and mortification, then later of resurrection and newness of life. It is accepted that Christ’s dominion is over all creation in two ways. First, as the Creator of all things and bearing authority over all things, he holds all things under subjection by the force of his majesty and by the compulsion of power. In this way he exercises lordship not only over good and holy minds and spirits, but also over bad and apostate spirits, and over those whom Holy Scripture has designated as evil angels.

But there is another way by which, as the Good and the Son of the good Father, he does not want to influence rational spirits toward obedience to his Law by compulsion, but he waits for them to seek the Good willingly and come of their own accord. It is for this reason, after all, that he thinks it worthy to go to death, so that he might leave behind a pattern of obedience and a type of dying for those who are willing to die to sin and to the vices. Thus the Apostle writes in the present passage that the reason he died and lived was that he might be Lord over both the living and the dead: of the living, that is those who, by the pattern of his resurrection, lead a new and heavenly life on earth; of the dead, doubtless those who carry around the mortification of Christ in their own body and who put to death their own members that are on the earth.

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