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Monday, May 15, 2006
Alipio: Getting the spirit
By Fr. Jose Alipio
Lifelines
Jn 6:60-69
THE author of John's gospel talks about the spiritual life by drawing sharp contrasts. He contrasts darkness and light as a way of talking about good and evil. He talks about flesh and spirits as a way of talking of belief and disbelief. Unfortunately, interpreters of this gospel have often mixed and matched these contrasting categories. They have identified spirit with light and hence seen the spirit as good. They have identified flesh with darkness and thus seen the flesh as evil. This confusion and mixture of categories has produced a body/soul dualism that has prevailed in the church for centuries. On this reading, the more spiritual you are, the less you can be involved in the life of the body. Indeed, the ideal of the spiritual life for this kind of body/soul dualism is a life of chastity, poverty and obedience.
There is something to be said of chastity, poverty and obedience as vows taken as a religious calling but not as a religious necessity. Modern theologians have called into question this age-old identification of flesh with evil. The word for "flesh" in the Bible is not a reference to our physical bodies and appetites. Rather, the word "flesh" describes a life that centered on the pleasures and needs of the material world to the exclusion of the spiritual world. We are not called to destroy our bodies in order to save our souls. Rather, we are called to commit ourselves mind and body to the life of faith. The life of faith is a life centered in the will and the way of God, which means living out our daily lives in service to love for God and love for those around us.
(May 15, 2006 issue)
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