Justification

The Roman Catholic Lectionary presents texts today which emphasize the role of the Holy Spirit in living in intimate peace with God. Friar Jude Winkler reminds us of the impassioned struggle of Paul with the Jewish Christian missionaries who traveled to Galatia to expose Paul as a fraud who had forsaken the observance of Jewish traditions as actions which are required by humans for righteous life with God. The experience of Paul and the Good News of Christianity is the revelation of God’s gracious love as a free gift. Our justification by faith is the acceptance that we trust in God to include us in the promise of the Canticle today from the Gospel of Luke that God will send a mighty Saviour to protect us from our enemies and continue the Covenant with Abraham that is the path to being righteous before Him. Luke exhorts us to pray to God and to seek that revelation of the action of the Holy Spirit in our lives which has sustained and raised us from the life of worldliness that Paul warns the Galatians against should they abandon the Spirit and return to seeking justification in the Law. Our quest for the riches of the gifts of the Spirit from the Father is not in vain as Jesus explains in the Gospel of Luke where He compares the generosity of human parents to their children with the uninhibited total Love of God for us.