Have Your Flesh and Spirit Too
Homily for Sunday, March 22, 2026: the Fifth Sunday of Lent
They say you can’t have your cake and eat it too.
It’s kind of a curious saying. I’ve heard it suggested that it ought to be reversed: You can’t eat your cake and have it too. The reasoning, I suppose, being that if you have a cake you can eat it. But once you eat your cake, that’s it – you can’t have it any more.
But in any case, I think the meaning is pretty clear: that life is about choices. Column A or Column B. One or the other. Life is an either/or proposition.
Saint Paul gives us this kind of dichotomy in the second reading from Romans. Flesh or Spirit. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God, he says. But if we live in the Spirit we find life. Saint Paul seems to be suggesting that we can’t have our Flesh, and Spirit too.
But in these final days of Lent we shift from this “flesh and spirit” dichotomy into something much deeper and richer. We are reminded today that as Catholics our faith is not a matter of either/or, but of both/and.
Throughout Lent we fast - we deny ourselves certain treats, certain pleasures to turn our focus away from the Flesh; and we work on prayer to turn more toward the Spirit.
And we practice almsgiving, which unites the spirit and the flesh. This is where we turn aside from our own needs, our own selfishness and personal desires, and turn toward that love of God and Neighbor.
Because what this season is about is not the denial of the Flesh, but about finding the right balance. To let the Spirit guide the Flesh instead of the other way around.
God has created us to be a unity of body and soul, a harmony of flesh and spirit. And our readings today, just two weeks before our celebration of the Resurrection of our Lord, remind us that this is God’s plan for all of us: body and soul rejoined in the Resurrection of the Dead.
We might think of this time of Lent and Easter as a kind of encapsulation of our spiritual life – a life of working ourselves away from the selfish impulses of the Flesh and toward the generous guidance of the Spirit, as we look forward to the Resurrection, the ultimate fulfillment of all we hope for.
The Resurrection should serve to remind us that, for all St. Paul’s warnings against living in the flesh, “the Flesh” is not evil. It’s not a prison our soul escapes from. The impulses and desires of the Flesh can distract us from the Spirit, turn us away from God if we let them, but they are ultimately part of God’s design – part of what He created us to be.
When Jesus took on human flesh he sanctified us and all our human experience. He became like us so we could become like him – so like him we can be resurrected from the dead.
So it turns out we can have our Flesh, and Spirit too! This is the threefold promise we get in our readings today. Jesus gives us the assurance that whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live; Saint Paul says that the one who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also, through his Spirit dwelling in you. And Ezekiel gives us God’s solemn word: I have promised, and I will do it, says the Lord.