The Part We Choose

A Reflection on the Second Reading for February 20th, 2022:
Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

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1 Corinthians
15.45-49

Brothers and sisters: “The first man, Adam, became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first, but the physical, and then the spiritual.

The first man was from the earth, made of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the one of dust, so are those who are of the dust; and as is the one of heaven, so are those who are of heaven.

Just as we have borne the image of the one of dust, we will also bear the image of the one of heaven.
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“We’ve all got both light and dark inside of us. What matters is the part we choose to act on.”
 


So said Sirius Black to Harry Potter midway through J.K. Rowling’s Order of the Phoenix.
 


We sometimes refer to the dark inside of us as “sin”, a word that carries a lot of emotional weight and, therefore, puts some people off. Research on the Greek and Hebrew words for sin is fractured — some say the origin of the word implies “missing the mark” (not too harsh), others offence against God (which is flinch-worthy) — and this lack of clarity is immensely unsatisfying. I’ve decided not to go down that road. What I can say, however, is that regardless of how “judgy” the original words for what we now call sin, we can at least acknowledge that sin bears some relation to the tendency within all of us to act out of self-interest and that acting in such a way separates us from God. I like the way Sirius Black captures it: “We’ve all got both light and dark inside of us.”
 


But, as we know, when it comes to behaviour, the dark inside of us — our weakness and self-interest — is not all that drives us to action.
 


In the second reading for this Sunday, Saint Paul reminds us that we have within us both the man of dust (Adam) and the man from heaven (Jesus), and we bear the image of both. When Jesus rose from the dead and ascended to heaven, He promised to send us His Holy Spirit not just to be with us but to be within us. This Spirit of God is not something external to us that we need to invite to come and be part of us — it is already part of us.
 


“Come, Holy Spirit” is an ancient prayer of the Church. When we invite the Spirit in this way, it is not for the purpose of bringing in a holiness that is external to us but rather to stir up a holiness already within us. We are calling on that holiness to be part of us that we choose to act on. We are rejecting the darkness and choosing the light. Jesus said, “I am the light.”
 


Lord, may we act as men of heaven. May we be your light to the world. May we burn ever brighter. May we grow in holiness. Amen.




Donna  Davis
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