Jesus of Nazareth, the Babe wailing in the manger of Bethlehem, is the eternal Word of God who became incarnate out of love for mankind ( Jn 1:14). This is the great truth to which the Christian adheres with deep faith. With the faith of Mary Most Holy who, in the glory of her intact virginity, conceived and begot the Son of God made man. With the faith of St Joseph who guarded and protected him with immense dedication of love. With the faith of the shepherds who immediately rushed to the grotto of the nativity. With the faith of the Magi who glimpsed him in the sign of the star and, after a long search, were able to contemplate and adore him in the arms of the Virgin Mother.

May the New Year be lived by all under the sign of this great inner joy, fruit of the certainty that God so loved the world that he gave his only Son so that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

This is my wish for all of you who are present at this first General Audience of 1981 and for all your loved ones.

1. What is the meaning of the statement: "The flesh ... has desires contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit has desires contrary to the flesh"? (Gal 5:17) This question seems important, indeed fundamental in the context of our reflections on purity of heart, of which the Gospel speaks. However, the author of the letter to the Galatians opens up even wider horizons before us in this regard. In this opposition of the "flesh" to the Spirit (Spirit of God), and of life "according to the flesh" to life "according to the Spirit" is contained the Pauline theology concerning justification, that is, the expression of faith in the anthropological and ethical realism of the redemption accomplished by Christ, which Paul, in the context already known to us, also calls "redemption of the body". According to the Epistle to the Romans (Rom 8:23), the "redemption of the body" also has a "cosmic" dimension (referring to the whole of creation), but at the centre of it is man: man constituted in the personal unity of spirit and body. And it is precisely in this man, in his "heart", and consequently in all his behaviour, that Christ's redemption bears fruit, thanks to those forces of the Spirit that bring about "justification", i.e. make righteousness "abound" in man as is inculcated in the Sermon on the Mount: Matthew (Matt 5:20), i.e. "abound" to the extent that God Himself willed and that He expects.

2. It is significant that Paul, speaking of the "works of the flesh" (cf. Gal 5:11-21), mentions not only "fornication, uncleanness, libertinism ... drunkenness, orgies" - thus, everything that, according to an objective understanding, has the character of "carnal sins" and sensual enjoyment connected with the flesh - but he also mentions other sins, to which we would not be inclined to attribute a "carnal" and "sensual" character: "idolatry, witchcraft, enmities, discord, jealousy, dissensions, divisions, factions, envy..." (Gal 5:20-21). According to our anthropological (and ethical) categories, we would be inclined rather to call all the 'works' listed here 'sins of the human spirit' than sins of the 'flesh'. Not without reason would we rather see in them the effects of the 'lust of the eyes' or the 'pride of life' than the effects of the 'lust of the flesh'. However, Paul qualifies them all as "works of the flesh". This is only to be understood against the background of the broader (in a certain sense metonymic) meaning that the term "flesh" takes on in the Pauline letters, contrasted not only and not so much with the human "spirit" as with the Holy Spirit working in the soul (spirit) of man.

3. There is, therefore, a significant analogy between what Paul defines as "works of the flesh" and the words with which Christ explains to his disciples what he had earlier told the Pharisees about ritual "purity" and "impurity" (cf. Mt 15:2-20). According to Christ's words, true "purity" (as well as "impurity") in the moral sense lies in the "heart" and comes "from the human heart". As 'impure works' in the same sense, not only 'adulteries' and 'prostitutions' are defined, thus 'sins of the flesh' in the strict sense, but also 'evil intentions ... theft, false witness, blasphemy'. Christ, as we have already seen, uses here the general as well as the specific meaning of "impurity" (and thus indirectly also of "purity"). St Paul expresses himself in a similar way: the works "of the flesh" are understood in the Pauline text in both a general and specific sense. All sins are an expression of 'life according to the flesh', which is in contrast to 'life according to the Spirit'. What, in accordance with our (moreover partially justified) linguistic convention, is regarded as the 'sin of the flesh', in Paul's list is one of the many manifestations (or species) of what he calls 'works of the flesh', and, in this sense, one of the symptoms, i.e. the actualisations of life 'according to the flesh' and not 'according to the Spirit'.

4. Paul's words to the Romans: "So then, brethren, we are debtors, but not to the flesh to live according to the flesh; for if ye live according to the flesh, ye shall die; but if by the help of the Spirit ye put to death the works of the body, ye shall live" (Rom 8:12-13), introduce us once again into the rich and differentiated sphere of meanings, which the terms "body" and "spirit" have for him. However, the ultimate meaning of that statement is parentic, exhortative, and therefore valid for the evangelical ethos. Paul, when he speaks of the need to put to death the works of the body with the help of the Spirit, expresses precisely what Christ spoke of in the Sermon on the Mount, appealing to the human heart and exhorting it to overcome desires, even those expressed in the man's 'gaze' directed towards the woman in order to satisfy the lust of the flesh. Such overcoming, i.e., as Paul writes, the "putting to death the works of the body with the help of the Spirit", is an indispensable condition of "life according to the Spirit", i.e. the "life" that is the antithesis of the "death" spoken of in the same context. Life 'according to the flesh' in fact brings forth 'death', i.e. it entails the 'death' of the Spirit as its effect.

Thus, the term 'death' does not only mean bodily death, but also sin, which moral theology would call mortal. In the Epistles to the Romans and Galatians, the Apostle continually broadens the horizon of 'sin-death', both towards the 'beginning' of human history and towards its end. And therefore, after listing the multiform "works of the flesh", he states that "he who does them will not inherit the kingdom of God" ( Gal 5:21). Elsewhere he will write with similar firmness: "Know this, no fornicator, or unclean, or miser - which is the stuff of idolaters - shall have any share in the kingdom of Christ and of God" ( Eph 5:5). Here too, the works that exclude from having "a share in the kingdom of Christ and God" - i.e. the "works of the flesh" - are listed as an example and with general value, although in first place here are the sins against "purity" in the specific sense (cf. Eph 5:3-7).

5. To complete the picture of the opposition between the "body" and the "fruit of the Spirit" it must be observed that in everything that is the manifestation of life and conduct according to the Spirit, Paul sees at the same time the manifestation of that freedom, by which Christ "has set us free" (Gal 5:1). Thus he writes: "For you, brethren, have been called to freedom. Provided that this freedom does not become a pretext for living according to the flesh, but through charity be of service to one another. For the whole law finds its fullness in one precept: you shall love your neighbour as yourself" (Gal 5:13-14). As we have already noted above, the opposition "body-Spirit", life "according to the flesh", life "according to the Spirit", deeply permeates all Pauline doctrine on justification. The Apostle to the Gentiles, with exceptional force of conviction, proclaims that man's justification is accomplished in Christ and through Christ. Man achieves justification in "faith working through charity" (Gal 5:6), and not only through the observance of the individual prescriptions of the Old Testament Law (in particular, circumcision). Justification therefore comes 'from the Spirit' (of God) and not 'from the flesh'. He therefore exhorts the recipients of his letter to free themselves from the erroneous "carnal" conception of justification, in order to follow the true one, that is, the "spiritual" one; in this sense, he exhorts them to consider themselves free from the Law, and even more to be free of the freedom for which Christ "has set us free".

Thus, therefore, following the Apostle's thought, we must consider and above all realise evangelical purity, that is, purity of heart, according to the measure of that freedom for which Christ "has set us free".

[Pope John Paul II, General Audience 7 January 1981]