«This is a very profound point, be it in the principle that it imparts in the practice of charity, and in the lesson that it gives to those who for terrestrial goods renounce the celestial goods.
By invoking the Holy Spirit, the inhabitor of hearts and bodies of the just, the Voice speaking to the conscience who makes of it a voice in teaching, in guiding, of law, Paul says, "I have a great sadness and unceasing sorrow in my heart, for I wish myself to be separated from Christ for my brothers (for the good of my brothers), who are of my blood according to the flesh: the Israelites, to whom belong the sonship(of God), the glory, the covenant, the giving of the law, the worship, the promises, the patriarchs, and from whom has (come), according to the flesh, the Christ...".
Paul was a Hebrew and an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, he who testifies and boasts of his noble descent received from the forefathers, even after the great light from heaven that flashed upon him on the road to Damascus had snatched him from the arid Synagogue in order to immerse him into the seven-fold river of grace that flows from the womb of the Church, from the Rock established by the eternal Pontiff: the Christ, against which Saul had hurled himself in vain, not crushing himself in the impact only through a divine will that had established great things for Saul.
Although he was by now detached from the Synagogue, Paul was still united by the bonds of affection to his brothers in the blood of Abraham. Nor is such an affection reproachable, for if a neighbour is every man inhabiting the Earth whom one must love, more than ever is he a neighbour (he) with whom one is united through a common descendancy, a native country, and a law.
Paul was from Tarsus in Cilicia. A Roman citizen, therefore, because Cilicia was under the jurisdiction of Rome. However, a Jew of the tribe of Benjamin by birth as to the Law, because few like him amongst the proselytes, or the inhabitants of the Diaspora, or the same Pharisees of Palestine, were fervent in Mosaic and Pharisaic practices as Saul was, zealous to the point of fanaticism and injustice.
The attachment to his blood brothers and to his past faith lingered, therefore, even after having embraced the new faith and having made himself into an apostle of Christ, the most fiery of the apostles rather, having brought himself with all his intransigence and with all his fanaticism of times gone by, congenital to his nature, into the new times.
However, since the transition had occurred through an extraordinary work of God - the Word made Flesh - so too, his love for his brothers of a time had transformed itself, as every other thing in him, from earthly affection to supernatural love. Even his intransigence and his fanaticism had transformed themselves, though they remained. Because Saul, the fervid, intransigent, fanatic Pharisee, stoner of Stephen if not with stones then with words, persecutor of Christians, having become Paul, become zealous not in hate but in love, intransigent for the honour of God and for the good of souls, first with himself and then with everyone else, from Peter the Pontiff to the last faithful.
And consequently, the earthly affection towards his brothers of a time elevates itself and (becomes) sublime, and becomes a martyrdom of supernatural love in him because he would like them also to be in the Kingdom, converted, repentant, and renewed by, through and in Christ whom they had rejected while He was still amongst them and persecuted as far as to death, asking that His Blood be upon them, not for a holy end of redemption, but out of hatred and derision.
That deicidal sin is the sorrow which wrings and fills the heart of Paul. Their obstinate permanence in this sin, which endured with the enduring persecution of Christ and with the persecution of Christians, was the great sadness of Paul. To the point that Paul desires and almost asks to be separated from Christ, his Love of loves, provided that they would arrive at repentance and love Him, meriting in this manner, of becoming living adoptive children of God and brothers of Christ not only through the flesh - taken up into Heaven by Him through the descendancy of Adam through mother lineage, and from Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and after successive generations, Jesse, then finally, the last Mary of the lineage of David, and therefore, Jesus of Nazareth is an Israelite of the most pure stock of the elect People - but also through co-inheritance in the Kingdom of the celestial Father.
Those who want to be true Christians must have the same sentiments of Paul for their separated brothers, prodigal children of different kinds, from that of those who are Christians because they believe in Christ but who are not members of the mystical Body because they are not united to the branch of the mystical Vine, that is, of the Roman Church, to those who are dead members of this Roman Church, having received Baptism and other sacraments from the true Church but who later, either out of an ill will which made them fall into mortal sins and into sinful ways of life or for having fallen into different kinds of heresies, have incurred ecclesiastical sanctions (through superstitions, idolatries even for man, dealings with the devil, belonging to anti-Christian sects, spiritism, witchcraft and other kinds of similar things).
To sacrifice oneself for these people so that they can return to the Life and have eternal Salvation is to have perfect love for one's neighbour. And the rule is this: to love not only those who are similar to you in religion and justice, and those who love you, but also and above all, those who are dissimilar to you and are your enemies, be it because they have a greater need or be it because to love one who persecutes or hates us and our faith and manner of acting, is evidence of a perfect making in Christ who even forgave His crucifiers and scorners, and it is a priceless piece for your treasure in Heaven.
The second lesson, the one on the different values of earthly or celestial goods is in v. 6, 7 and 8, and the conclusion is in v. 13.
"Not all those who come from Israel are Israelites nor those born from the lineage of Abraham are all (his) children, but 'through Isaac shall your descendants be named'. Therefore, the children of the flesh are not the children of God, but the children of the promise are accounted as the descendants."
There. It is again the free will of man that decides the future and eternal destiny. As it was through Adam's will that made him fall, as it was through Cain's will in becoming a fratricide and fugitive by giving origin to the children of the flesh, that is, to those who have come out of every law, moral as well. And so it was also the ill will of Ishmael that expelled him from the tribe of Abraham and into a generator of the children of the flesh rather than of God's because he had become joined to a woman from Egypt, that is, an idolatress.
Centuries will pass and Israel will again repeat that error, with its King marrying foreign and idolatrous women and establishing the cult of idols next to the Temple of the Lord, creating, in this manner, the grounds for political and religious schisms which for centuries divided Israel in the Kingdom of Judas and of Israel, and put the inhabitants of Palestine - Judeans and Galileans - against the Samaritans up until after the death of Christ.
But before this, another will lose, out of contempt for the things which are truly precious and imperishable, and out of attachment to earthly things, the birthright of the elect lineage and then the paternal blessing, similar to a blessing that is handed down from the Father Creator to a natural father in order to invest the first-born with extraordinary powers, and lastly will lose its membership of the People of the Promise by creating the lineage of the Edomites or idumaean, people against whom the Lord is indignant (Malachias 1: 4) since it was no longer Israel but a race of slaves and not of a free people, like the one of Ishmael [slaves], a sign of the future difference between the children of the Law of the Synagogue and of those of the Law of the Church of Christ which makes of the men who follow it, children of God, brothers in Christ, and co-heirs of Heaven.
Therefore, it is not a variation in the eternal and perfect Will that guides to perfect liberty and to life in the Kingdom these ones rather than those, as some reformed and heretical churches would like to say. But it is the free will of man that can elect what pleases him the most: the flesh or the spirit, the world or Heaven, satan or God.
However, only those who remain faithful to God and firmly believe in Christ His Son and practice His Law and His Doctrine - which is the completion of the Law of Sinai, stripped of the chains of the Synagogue and made free again as God is free, good as God is good, simple as God is simple - only these become or remain children of God.
And those, who believing themselves to be "the firstborn" amongst the people of God for having come first, who persecuted those who were reputed to be of lesser importance just for having come later, for following the "Son of a carpenter of Nazareth" scorned by them only for having despised Him - and to have despised together with Him the predilection that God had for Israel by letting His Word Incarnate be born in Israel - as it was for Ishmael and Esau who from the first-born of the elect descendancy became the slaves of their sin, those who remained behind, weighted by their sins, and above all, by the great deicidal sin, into those severed from the Nation of children, into those hated by the eternal Love because they did not know how to receive and love the Love made Flesh for love.
Those instead who were not the People of God (the Gentiles of every country and time) became so, and belonged to the Kingdom of Christ on Earth by belonging to His regal Bride, the Church, and in Heaven by rising to its possession, just as the immutable Word of God had promised as far back as Eden and after, through the Patriarchs and the Prophets, up to Christ and through His mouth, and then through the magisterium of the Church, for as long as the Church will be.
The ancient promise of the Redeemer, having by now been accomplished with His coming and with the completion of His mission in the world, is substituted with a new promise, "Whoever believes in Christ and receives Him and His doctrine becomes a child of God and he will have eternal life." Just as the ancient Synagogue is substituted, and forever, until the end of time, by the Church of Christ, and the Old is succeeded by the New Testament.
Only the children of the promise, that is, those who believe in Christ and live in the mystical Body of which He is the most holy Head and the assembly of the faithful, His members "are accounted for as descendants", and therefore, are co-heirs in the Kingdom of the eternal Jerusalem.»