5th Sunday in Lent

Fifth Lent Sunday (year A)

(Rom 8:8–11)

Romans 8:8 Those who live according to the flesh cannot please God.

Romans 8:9 But you are not under the control of the flesh, but of the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to him.

Romans 8:10 And if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of justification.

Paul does not want anyone to harbour illusions: those who live according to the flesh cannot please God. From the acceptance of this truth arises within us the possibility of a new path. If, on the other hand, we allow ourselves to be overcome by illusion, any path upwards becomes impossible, and it will always be impossible as long as man harbours the illusion of pleasing God whilst in fact God is not pleased with him, because he is guided and led by his flesh. He cannot please God because the flesh seeks self-affirmation and the nullification of God; it seeks the deification of man and consequently the removal of man from God. Whoever lives according to the flesh is in rebellion against God; indeed, God is his enemy, for He is the One who takes away man’s space because He wishes to govern his life. To assert himself in his flesh, such a person desires the death of God.

This dramatic choice became a reality with Jesus Christ. He was put to the cross, because His presence demanded the death of the flesh into which man had fallen. The flesh killed God, hung Him on the wood of the cross, and removed Him from the picture. This opposition will accompany man throughout his life, and will ultimately result either in eternal death or eternal life, either forever far from God or forever close to God.

But we can and must please God. We can and must because we are not under the dominion of the flesh, but under the dominion of the Holy Spirit who dwells within us. “But you are not under the dominion of the flesh,” says St Paul. This is the truth that every Christian must make their own. Escaping the dominion of the flesh means that man has truly been redeemed, set free; the long, arduous, peril-filled journey has begun that will lead him to the heavenly homeland, in complete freedom from all bondage.

Another truth that Paul never ceases to remind us of is that the Christian is under the dominion of the Spirit, as attested by the fact that the Spirit of God dwells within him. The flesh is falsehood, selfishness, disobedience, and separation from God. The Spirit, on the other hand, creates freedom, love, communion, obedience, and submission to God. Therefore, ‘if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to him’: an obvious and banal statement, were it not for the fact that all too easily one presumes to be of Christ. If the Spirit brings about the destruction of the flesh, if the Spirit creates the new man, if the Spirit leads the believer towards the fullness of life and truth, it is also true that whoever is without the Spirit of Christ cannot belong to Christ. He does not belong to Christ because he belongs to the flesh, and even though Christ bought him at a high price by shedding his blood on the cross, if man has returned of his own will under the dominion of the flesh, this man cannot belong to Christ. Belonging to Christ is not simply a matter of belonging due to the fact that, through the sacrament of baptism, man has come out from under the dominion of the flesh to enter into that of the Spirit. This is an initial, nascent belonging. It is necessary for this belonging to be transformed into the habitual indwelling of the Spirit within us. We are Christ’s; we belong to Him because He has bought us with His most precious blood, but we can freely depart from this belonging through our surrender to sin and death.

“And if Christ is in you”: Christ is in us if His Spirit dwells in us. The Spirit dwells in you if man remains in the truth. If the believer has truly conformed his way of life to the Spirit of Christ, then “Your body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of justification”. Man’s spirit has been filled with the life of Christ, but this life is not a fruit produced from within man, just as a tree naturally produces its fruit. This life comes to him from without; it comes to him because of justification, that is, because of God’s will to make man righteous in Christ.

Justification does not occur automatically, without the participation of man’s will. It is accomplished in man through an act of faith in Christ. Justification is not without faith, for otherwise man would be deprived of his will. Now, what makes men human is precisely the will; without it, they are no longer human. God allows a man to end up in eternal darkness rather than deprive him of his very essence as a man. This is the tremendous mystery of man’s ontological constitution, and within this ontological constitution lies also the mystery of sin. Those who advocate a purely objective justification in which every man is saved and redeemed, those who propose the abolition of hell or its temporary nature, these do not realise that by advocating such theories they destroy themselves in their ontological reality, for they declare themselves not to be men, that is, beings not endowed with will and self-determination.

Unfortunately, today man no longer knows himself, and he does not know himself because he does not know God, and not knowing God, he cannot even know himself. That man does not know himself is attested precisely by the fact that he has destroyed himself in his ontological reality. But the destruction of man attests to another terrible reality. If man does not know himself, it is because the Spirit of truth does not dwell within him. If the Christian does not know himself, it is a clear sign that he has returned to the flesh, for only those who are in the flesh do not know God, and the ignorance in which he lives is to his grave detriment.

The Christian does not have a vocation to mediocrity, or simply to avoid sin. The Christian possesses a vocation to the highest holiness. He is called to develop every gift of grace and truth so that it may bear the greatest fruit. Minimalism, mediocrity and superficiality are not the Christian’s vocation. His vocation is, rather, to attain conformity to the Lord Jesus. Today we are forgetting the vocation we have received. We are living as though we had no vocation to fulfil, indeed as though our body were condemned to sin. Instead, St Paul tells us that a Christian is either one who is taken and led by the Holy Spirit, or is not a Christian.

Argentino Quintavalle, author of the books

- Revelation – an exegetical commentary

- The Apostle Paul and the Judaizers – Law or Gospel?

Jesus Christ, True God and True Man in the Trinitarian Mystery

The Prophetic Discourse of Jesus (Matthew 24–25)

All Generations Will Call Me Blessed

Catholics and Protestants Compared – In Defence of the Faith

The Church and Israel According to St Paul – Romans 9–11

(Available on Amazon)

747 Last modified on Monday, 16 March 2026 18:09

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Argentino Quintavalle

Argentino Quintavalle è studioso biblico ed esperto in Protestantesimo e Giudaismo. Autore del libro “Apocalisse - commento esegetico” (disponibile su Amazon) e specializzato in catechesi per protestanti che desiderano tornare nella Chiesa Cattolica.

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It does not mean that the Lord has departed to some place far from people and from the world. Christ's Ascension is not a journey into space toward the most remote stars […] Christ's Ascension means that he no longer belongs to the world of corruption and death that conditions our life. It means that he belongs entirely to God (Pope Benedict)

Non vuol dirci che il Signore se ne è andato in qualche luogo lontano dagli uomini e dal mondo. L’Ascensione di Cristo non è un viaggio nello spazio verso gli astri più remoti […] L’Ascensione di Cristo significa che Egli non appartiene più al mondo della corruzione e della morte che condiziona la nostra vita. Significa che Egli appartiene completamente a Dio (Papa Benedetto)

«When the servant of God is troubled, as it happens, by something, he must get up immediately to pray, and persevere before the Supreme Father until he restores to him the joy of his salvation. Because if it remains in sadness, that Babylonian evil will grow and, in the end, will generate in the heart an indelible rust, if it is not removed with tears» (St Francis of Assisi, FS 709)

«Il servo di Dio quando è turbato, come capita, da qualcosa, deve alzarsi subito per pregare, e perseverare davanti al Padre Sommo sino a che gli restituisca la gioia della sua salvezza. Perché se permane nella tristezza, crescerà quel male babilonese e, alla fine, genererà nel cuore una ruggine indelebile, se non verrà tolta con le lacrime» (san Francesco d’Assisi, FF 709)

Wherever people want to set themselves up as God they cannot but set themselves against each other. Instead, wherever they place themselves in the Lord’s truth they are open to the action of his Spirit who sustains and unites them (Pope Benedict

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But our understanding is limited: thus, the Spirit's mission is to introduce the Church, in an ever new way from generation to generation, into the greatness of Christ's mystery. The Spirit places nothing different or new beside Christ; no pneumatic revelation comes with the revelation of Christ - as some say -, no second level of Revelation (Pope Benedict)

Ma la nostra capacità di comprendere è limitata; perciò la missione dello Spirito è di introdurre la Chiesa in modo sempre nuovo, di generazione in generazione, nella grandezza del mistero di Cristo. Lo Spirito non pone nulla di diverso e di nuovo accanto a Cristo; non c’è nessuna rivelazione pneumatica accanto a quella di Cristo - come alcuni credono - nessun secondo livello di Rivelazione (Papa Benedetto)

Chi ha toccato il cuore di Lidia? La risposta è: «lo Spirito Santo». È lui che ha fatto sentire a questa donna che Gesù era il Signore; ha fatto sentire a questa donna che la salvezza era nelle parole di Paolo; ha fatto sentire a questa donna una testimonianza (Papa Francesco)

But what does it mean to love Christ? It means trusting him even in times of trial, following him faithfully even on the Via Crucis, in the hope that soon the morning of the Resurrection will come. Entrusting ourselves to Christ, we lose nothing, we gain everything. In his hands our life acquires its true meaning. Love for Christ expresses itself in the will to harmonize our own life with the thoughts and sentiments of his Heart. This is achieved through interior union [Pope Benedict]

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