Today, we will begin a reflection on Romans 12:2.
“Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, so that you may judge what is God’s will, what is good, pleasing and perfect.”

If we are looking for a way to grow in the life of God, this passage from Rom 12:2 is a good place to start.

Paul was well aware of his own era and the difficulties it presented to the baptized Christians, who had died to sin and lived in Christ through Baptism. It was an era which he described thus: “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against the irreligious and perverse spirit of men who, in this perversity of theirs, hinder the truth....They certainly had knowledge of God, yet they did not glorify him as God or give him thanks; they stultified themselves through speculating to no purpose, and their senseless hearts were darkened. They claimed to be wise, but turned into fools instead; they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images representing mortal men... In consequence, God delivered them up in their lusts to unclean practices; they engaged in the mutual degradation of their bodies, these men who exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator...They are filled with every kind of wickedness: maliciousness, greed, ill will, envy, murder, bickering, deceit, craftiness. They are gossips and slanders, they hate God, are insolent, haughty, boastful, ingenious in their wrongdoing and rebellious....One sees in them men without conscience, without loyalty, without affection, without pity.”(Rom 18-31)

How different is our culture and environment today? Not much, maybe worse.  Paul sought to change the culture he lived in; but was more concerned with changing the response of the true believers and followers of Jesus to the culture. In the thoughts of John Paul II, we are to evangelize the culture rather than to let the culture influence and change us. Like Paul and the early Christians, we are faced with a culture of death; we are to create for ourselves and live in a culture of life. (To be continued)