“Those in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh; on the contrary, you are in the spirit…” Do our lives confirm or contradict this declaration of St. Paul?
We are in the flesh. We are human beings with real physical needs and desires. The physical needs and desires that we have are often quite pleasurable. The problem becomes when we allow our physical needs and desires to control how we think and how we act. For example, we can become obsessed with food and become fixated on satiating that desire without regard for our health and how our insatiable desire for food may negatively impact others. Or, we may take pleasure in alcohol and soon find ourselves drinking too much, and too often. Both of these examples raise the issue of addiction and the need for treatment of that addiction, but the point here is that we don’t recognize that we have a problem and so we do not act to address the problem. Sex is a major issue today. In our parish, we have persons as young 14 years old engaged in sexual activity. From an early age, young people can become habituated to satisfying their sexual desires without any consideration of what is appropriate and healthy. To be in the flesh in these ways is contrary to what God desires for us.
We are in the Spirit. God gifted us with God’s Spirit in baptism. With the help of God’s Spirit, we can act to control our physical needs and desires so that we fill those needs and desires in a way that is healthy for us and that will lead us into that abundance of life that is God’s desire for us. Lent gives us the opportunity to look very honestly at our lives. Where in our lives have the desires of the flesh taken control of our lives? Where in our lives do we see that the desires of the flesh control the way we think and the way we act? Where do we need the grace of God’s Spirit to control our needs and desires so as to live in the freedom of God’s children – not enslaved to our desires?
Let us live, not as slaves to the flesh, but as persons guided by God’s Spirit.


Fr. Mark Hallinan, S.J.