The month of July finds us firmly in Ordinary Time, and our Gospel readings are from Matthew. Our second readings, however, are from the Letter to the Romans, and they encourage us to continue thinking about the big theological issues I have covered in the last couple of months: the meaning of the Resurrection, Ascension and Pentecost, and how this relates to the revelation of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This is especially the case as we reach Romans chapter 8.
On July 9 we will hear: “if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, then he who raised Jesus from the dead will give life to your own mortal bodies through his Spirit living in you” (Rom 8:11), and we see how all three persons of the Trinity and the Resurrection are linked to each other and to the difference that Jesus’s Resurrection has made to our lives. St Paul continues to develop this theme in the subsequent verses of the chapter, as he expounds what scholars like to call his “realised eschatology”.
