Col 3, 5-10 Put to death the parts of you that are earthly

(Col 3, 5-10) Put to death the parts of you that are earthly

[5] Put to death, then, the parts of you that are earthly: immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and the greed that is idolatry. [6] Because of these the wrath of God is coming (upon the disobedient). [7] By these you too once conducted yourselves, when you lived in that way. [8] But now you must put them all away: anger, fury, malice, slander, and obscene language out of your mouths. [9] Stop lying to one another, since you have taken off the old self with its practices [10] and have put on the new self, which is being renewed, for knowledge, in the image of its creator.

(CCC 1420) Through the sacraments of Christian initiation, man receives the new life of Christ. Now we carry this life "in earthen vessels," and it remains "hidden with Christ in God" (2 Cor 4:7; Col 3:3). We are still in our "earthly tent," subject to suffering, illness, and death (2 Cor 5:1). This new life as a child of God can be weakened and even lost by sin. (CCC 1852) There are a great many kinds of sins. Scripture provides several lists of them. The Letter to the Galatians contrasts the works of the flesh with the fruit of the Spirit: "Now the works of the flesh are plain: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things shall not inherit the Kingdom of God" (Gal 5:19-21; cf. Rom 1:28-32; 1 Cor 9-10; Eph 5:3-5; Col 3:5-8; 1 Tim 9-10; 2 Tim 2-5). (CCC 1972) The New Law is called a law of love because it makes us act out of the love infused by the Holy Spirit, rather than from fear; a law of grace, because it confers the strength of grace to act, by means of faith and the sacraments; a law of freedom, because it sets us free from the ritual and juridical observances of the Old Law, inclines us to act spontaneously by the prompting of charity and, finally, lets us pass from the condition of a servant who "does not know what his master is doing" to that of a friend of Christ - "For all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you" - or even to the status of son and heir (Jn 15:15; cf. Jas 1:25; 2:12; Gal 4:1-7. 21-31; Rom 8:15).