We must be careful in reading the scripture passages today - both of them.
The first reading should not encourage us to drive a wedge between the body and the spirit in ourselves as human beings. The second reading should not give us license to do inappropriate work on the Lord’s Day!
There was a tendency in the time of St. Paul, after the events of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus, and the sending of the Spirit - to overemphasize the spirit in human beings, to the detriment of regard for the body. This is part of “Pauline Theology.” It is rightly based. Paul argues that if the Holy Spirit of God has truly come to us in Baptism - for the forgiveness of our sins - he also comes to make us adopted children of God allowing us to call God: Abba - Father! This status is far superior to the instinctual, animalistic tendencies of the body which need to be governed by an external law so that we are not destroyed by the body’s inappropriate appetites and irrational attempts to satisfy them. But Paul seems to lose sight of the fact that there needs to be a balance between regard for the spirit and the body.
It is Pope John Paul the Great, in his Theology of the Body, who proposes this balance. His argument emphasizes the redemption of the body, as well as the redemption of the spiritual part of man. By the Death and Resurrection of Jesus, it is now possible for the body and its lower governing instincts to be transformed and realigned closer to their original state at the time of Creation; and for the spirit to find a helper in the body, by which it gains access to becoming a helping vehicle in the loving service of other people!
And so - while St. Paul emphasizes strictly the spiritual over the material; Pope John Paul emphasizes a more realistic combination of both the spiritual and material aspects of the one human being! Both can help and aid each other in living out the Gospel mandate of Jesus: to love as he loves; to help free people from their distresses, as he would; to bring comfort and healing wherever we can, as he did! Jesus tells us that, while observing Sunday is an important thing, we can do spiritually good work on any day of the week!
Our God is the God of salvation!
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