Letter to the Galatians
From the letter to the Galatians by Saint Paul the Apostle Gal 4: 8-31
Our divine inheritance and the freedom of the new covenant
In the past, when you did not acknowledge God, you served as slaves to gods who are not really divine. Now that you have come to know God – or rather, have been known by him – how can you return to those powerless, worthless, natural elements to which you seem willing to enslave yourselves once more? You even go so far as to keep the ceremonial observance of days and months, seasons and years! I fear for you: all my efforts with you may have been waster.
I beg you, brothers, to become like me as I became like you. (Understand, you have not done me any wrong.) You are aware that it was a bodily ailment that first occasioned my bringing you the gospel. My physical condition was a challenge which you did not despise or brush aside in disgust. On the contrary, you took me to yourselves as an angel of God, even as if I had been Christ Jesus! What has happened to your openhearted spirit? I can testify on your behalf that if it were possible you would have plucked out your eyes and given them to me. Have I become your enemy just because I tell you the truth?
The people I have referred to are not courting your favor in any generous spirit. What they really want is to exclude you so that you may court their favor. It would be well for you to be courted for the right reasons at all times, and not only when I happen to be with you. You are my children, and you put me back in labor pains until Christ is formed in you. If only I could be with you now and speak to you differently! You have me at a complete loss!
You who want to be subject to the law, tell me: do you know what the law has to say? There it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave girl, the other by his freeborn wife. The son of the slave girl had been begotten in the course of nature, but the son of the free woman was the fruit of the promise.
All this is an allegory: the two women stand for the two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, and brought forth children to slavery: this is Hagar. The mountain Sinai [Hagar] is in Arabia and corresponds to the Jerusalem of our time, which is likewise in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem on high is freeborn, and it is she who is our mother. That is why Scripture says:
“Rejoice, you barren one who bear no children;
break into song, you stranger to the pains of childbirth!
For many are the children of the wife deserted -
far more than of her who has a husband!”
You, my brothers, are children of the promise, as Isaac was. But just as in those days the son born in nature’scourse persecuted the one whose birth was in the realm of the spirit, so do we find it now. What does Scripture say on the point? “Cast out slave girl and son together; for the slave girl’s son shall never be an heir on equal terms with the son” of the one born free.
Therefore, my brothers, we are not children of a slave girl but of a mother who is free. It was for liberty that Christ freed us.
Source: The Liturgy of the Hours – Office of Readings