Reading Romans

The Lectionary recently turned to Paul’s letter to the Romans for the first reading at weekday masses. It started on October 12 (Monday of the 28th week of Ordinary Time) and will continue until November 7 (Saturday of the 31st week of Ordinary Time). I’ve been reading and re-reading chapters 4 through 8, and my feeble mind has been struggling to follow Paul’s logic without falling into a Manichean duality (spirit good, body bad!), but I think I’m slowly getting there. I’d like, therefore, to take this moment to whole-heartedly agree with St. Peter that Paul’s “letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.” (2 Peter 3:16).