The essay below was published in the October issue of Give Us This Day as commentary on this week’s lectionary — especially the readings from Romans on Monday and Tuesday, but also looking forward to the celebrations of All Saints and All Souls on Wednesday and Thursday.
I consider that the sufferings of this present time are as nothing
compared with the glory to be revealed. (Rom 8:18)
St. Paul was a master of opposites. I can remember my New Testament professor making wonderful lists of Pauline opposites on a chalkboard, back when chalkboards were a thing. What a wonderful list he would have made (and probably did!) with the readings we have this week from Romans 8 (Monday and Tuesday). In Column A, we have this present time, characterized by: flesh, death, spirit of slavery, fear, and suffering. In Column B, we have what is to be revealed, with its corresponding opposites: Spirit, life, spirit of adoption, hope, and glory. I can almost hear the spirited scratch of chalk and see those dust particles flying!
Although Paul suffered plenty of rejection as a preacher, there is a reason his gospel took hold and still speaks to us today. Paul knew all too well that suspended feeling each of us experiences every day of our lives—the “eager expectation,” the waiting, the endurance, the groaning—the way it feels to live in both columns.
Paul’s gospel was about hope. Not a shallow hope meant to numb or appease, but a “prophet-who-has-seen-the-Promised-Land” kind of hope, a living witness. Paul’s understanding of salvation was primarily apocalyptic; he was convinced that the present and the future intersect and collide. The present time is moving inexorably toward a future that is rich and overflowing with glory. In the meantime, we “groan.” And yet! In the meantime, we already taste God’s glory as children of God who live in a time of incredible promise: as “joint heirs with Christ” we will inherit everything Christ himself has inherited. The first inheritance is resurrected life.
Paul’s opposites express the almost unbearable tension of this apocalyptic hope. Although salvation is playing out in our lives every day, indeed every moment, it has not played out in its fullness. Not yet. But if one column of our chalkboard list could be etched in gold, it would be Column B, with its one foot firmly in the present and its full lean into an abundant future. Indeed, Paul insists that “the sufferings of this present time” are “as nothing” (“a small price to pay,” translates Brendan Byrne, SJ). Elsewhere Paul insists that “this slight momentary affliction” will yield “an eternal weight of glory” (2 Cor 4:17).
Sometimes the “sufferings of this present time” overwhelm us. Death, fear, and futility still have their way with us. And yet it is Paul’s vision—one that was acquired, let’s not forget, on a dusty road to Damascus when he encountered the Risen One in a blaze of light—that sustains us. The “glory to be revealed” is none other than our own transformative encounters with God as joint heirs of the Risen Lord—a glory we can already see, taste, and touch, but which we do not yet fully experience.
The saints and souls we celebrate on Wednesday (All Saints) and Thursday (All Souls) are living witnesses of this light-filled vision. Having lived the opposites, they are icons of the hope etched in gold—a hallmark of Paul’s gospel and of every Christian life.
Amy Ekeh, from the October 2023 issue of Give Us This Day, www.giveusthisday.org (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2023). Used with permission.
Postscript: My New Testament professor was Fr. Frank Matera at The Catholic University of America, now retired in my home diocese, the Archdiocese of Hartford, where I’m blessed to see him regularly. He taught me so much about reading the New Testament, and I continue to count on his mentorship and friendship.