Fourth Sunday of Advent—Romans 1:1-7

This week’s second reading is the introductory preamble to Saint Paul’s great letter to the Romans. This letter is unique among his letters in a few related ways. He is not writing to address the problems or questions of a specific community. Rather, Saint Paul is writing to a community he has not visited before in order to lay out the basics of his message before he gets there. Because of these circumstances, Romans can be said to be Saint Paul’s systematic presentation of what it means to be a Christian. It is well worth taking the time to read all 16 chapters of Romans this week.

In the course of this introduction, Saint Paul talks about how he has been called to be an apostle—today, we call someone in this office a bishop—"to bring about the obedience of faith.” This is the reason Saint Paul is appointed a bishop/apostle. So what then is the obedience of faith? The Catechism puts it this way:

“By his revelation, the invisible God, from the fullness of his love, addresses men as his friend, and moves among them, in order to invite and receive them into this own company. The adequate response to this invitation is faith. By faith, man completely submits his intellect and his will to God. With his whole bring man gives assent to God the revealer. Sacred Scripture calls this human response to God, the author or revelation, ‘the obedience of faith’” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 142-143).

The obedience of faith is the appropriate response when God moves among us. God has moved among us for centuries through the Old Testament, and he moved among us in a wholly unique way by becoming fully human, “from the line of David according to the flesh.” We celebrate at Christmas how great is it that the invisible God becomes visible for us. In Jesus, we have the most complete encounter with God possible, the fullest revelation of who God is, what he is like, and what he wants from us. And the appropriate response to that is to completely submit our minds and our desires to God. This is why Saint Paul calls himself a “slave of Christ.” And you and I should too.

Toward the end of this reading, Saint Paul diverts from the customary formula of ancient letters. If this column appeared in the Athenian Gazette around the year 45 A.D., it would begin, “Jason, to the good people of Saint Luke the Evangelist Parish, greetings and wishes for good health.” Saint Paul expands this greeting and inserts a summary of the Gospel into it. He also substitutes the customary wishes for good health with a prayer for grace and peace. I see in this a message from the Holy Spirit. We cannot have good spiritual health without grace, the very life of God freely given to us, and peace, that fruit of the Spirit so badly in need in our world. We can experience these things fully only through the obedience of faith. Lord, increase your grace in our souls and your peace in our hearts!