Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time—Romans 12:1-2

This week’s second reading comes from the final section of Saint Paul’s Letter to the Romans, encompassing chapters 12-15. In this moral catechesis, he addresses life in the Church, responsibility toward civil governments, and avoiding scandal. In the two verse of this reading, he urges us to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice, a sacrifice which he says is holy and acceptable to God. What is the Holy Spirit saying by this?

First, the Spirit is pointing out that our bodies matter. Embodiment, corporality, what we do in the physical world matters. It is not enough to have some vague fundamental option for good if it is not accompanied by concreate actions of our physical selves. We must do good, not simply like the concept of good. As the letter of James puts it, “Faith without works is dead” (2:17.) As Jesus himself puts it, “By their fruits you will know them” (Matthew 7:20). Fruits are the embodied actions of a healthy and growing plant. What fruits do we produce with our bodily actions, the things we look at, the words we say, the thoughts we entertain? These all should be living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God.

Second, the Spirit is reminding us that our embodied lives can be a spiritual offering. Saint Paul urges us to view our bodies as a living sacrifice. I cannot hear that phrase and not think of the Eucharist, the Living Bread that re-presents Jesus’ sacrifice. He is urging us to be Eucharistic people, to say to the world, “This is my body, given up for you.” All the little difficulties of our embodiment—fatigue, mental illness, aging, identity disorders, susceptibility to illness, allergies, medical conditions, the looming specter of death, etc.—all can either remain the annoyances of bodily life or can become sacrifices that are holy and acceptable to the Lord.

Third, the Spirit calls us to be transformed by the renewal of the mind. Jesus told us the greatest commandment involves loving God with our whole mind (see Luke 10:27). Before we can love with our whole mind, we must renew our mind, to choose to seek truth and to understand it as best we can. Part of being a Christian is viewing the world from the Lord’s perspective and not simply from a worldly perspective. When we learn to see with the Spirit’s eyes, we love God with our whole mind. We cannot see from the Lord’s perspective without knowing a thing or two about him. It takes a certain level of study and familiarity with the facts of the faith. Studying the faith is a way to make our bodies a living sacrifice by renewing our mind.

When we use our embodiment to glorify God as a living sacrifice, and when we transform our minds through prayerful study of the faith so that we can see as God sees, the Spirit offers us something incredible. In the words of Saint Paul this week, we “may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect” (Romans 12:2). This will be of critical importance in Saint Paul’s moral catechesis explored in the rest of the letter, which we will read over the next few weeks during Mass.