But from the list of vices at the beginning of the letter (see Rom 1:26ff), we know how much importance it has in his eyes. The apostle does not speak in great detail here about this aspect of Christian life. Among the works of the flesh, he highlights sexual dissoluteness with two words ( koite and aselgeia) that are contrasted to the work of light, which is purity. The things that the apostle calls “the works of darkness” in this passage are the same things he defines elsewhere as “desires, or works, of the flesh” (see Rom 8:13 Gal 5:19), and what he calls ”the armor of light” refers to the things that he elsewhere calls “the works of the Spirit,” or “the fruit of the Spirit” (see Gal 5:22). Now he knew that with God’s help, he could be chaste. A reassuring light ( lux securitatis) shone forth within him that made all the darkness of uncertainty disappear. The passage his eyes fell on was precisely the passage from the Letter to the Romans that we have just read. Paul’s Letters close by, he opened it randomly and decided to consider the first thing he read as God’s will for him. In the garden of the home he was visiting, in the throes of this interior struggle with tears in his eyes, he heard a voice coming from the house next door, a young boy’s or girl’s voice that kept repeating, “ Tolle, lege! Take up and read, take up and read.” He interpreted those words as an invitation from God, and having a book of St. He was living, as we know, with a woman without being married. But there was one thing holding him back: the fear of not being able to remain chaste. He had now reached an almost complete commitment to the faith. Augustine in his Confessions tells us about the part this passage played in his conversion. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires (Rom 13:12-14). Let us then cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light let us conduct ourselves becomingly as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. The night is far gone, the day is at hand. In our commentary on the exhortations in the Letter to the Romans, we have now come to the passage that says, Here is the fifth Lenten homily given this year by the preacher of the Pontifical Household, Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa. ‘Purity and love of neighbor represent dominion over self and the gift of self to others.’
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