Salvation Seminar Week 1.
“For by grace you have been saved through
faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God – not because of
works, lest any man should boast” (Eph 2:8-9).
In the Catholic Liturgy, and the several
Scriptural readings at Mass, salvation is mentioned so frequently, and in so
many aspects, that it can slip by us if we do not take time to notice.
For example, last Sunday’s Opening Prayer
begins, “Keep your family safe, O Lord, with unfailing care, that, relying
solely on the hope of heavenly grace, they may be defended always by your
protection.”
Safety, care, defense, protection – all
aspects of our salvation, an implication of some harm we are saved from. Yet in
that short prayer, the most direct reference to salvation is in the word
“family.” We are God’s “family.” Our salvation is in our adoption into God’s
family as sons and daughters of a Loving Father.
And how does this happen? The prayer
tells: “relying solely on the hope of heavenly grace.”
When it was prayed at Mass, did we notice
all this? Did we see the theme of salvation in all the other prayers and
Scripture readings? They all spoke of salvation in so many ways.
So let’s slow it down. Slowly, week by
week, we’ll savor many aspects of God’s salvation.
This week we are looking at salvation as a
gift of grace. Actually, that’s a redundancy: “grace” means “gift.” Salvation
is God’s gift.
Besides, salvation isn’t about becoming a
better person. St. Paul tells us that to be saved is to be united to God in
Christ and to be “conformed to the image of his Son” (Ro 8:29). That’s how we
get adopted into God’s family, by becoming brothers and sisters of Christ.
OK, so how does this happen? “For by grace
you have been saved through faith,” we quoted above. “Grace” – God’s gift made
available to us in Christ. The gift is not just power or favor or some thing.
It is Christ himself! Christ is the gift. Christ is also the giver. He “gave
himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age” (Gal 1:3-4).
To whom is this gift of Christ – of God
himself – of adoption into God’s family – offered? To the helpless, to the
ungodly, to those stuck in sin, to God’s enemies (Ro 5:6, 8, 10). These are the
ones Christ died for. Are you on that short list? Of course you are. We all
are!
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC)
says, “Grace is favor, the free and undeserved help that God gives us to
respond to his call to become children of God” (CCC 1996). “Since the
initiative belongs to God in the order of grace, no one can merit the initial
grace of forgiveness and justification, at the beginning of conversion” (CCC2010).
Remember the woman who had been a sinner,
but came to Jesus in love, weeping at his feet and anointing them? Jesus said,
“I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much” (Lk7:47). And he turned to the woman and said, “Your faith has saved you; go in
peace (Lk 7:50). She received salvation because of her faith, and her
extravagant love demonstrated her awareness of how deeply and extensively she
had been forgiven.
Faith, too, is God’s gift. It is the means
through which we receive his grace. God takes the initiative to save us by his
gift of grace, through his gift of faith, by which he incorporates us into his
family. Our job is to receive. And that’s when we learn to love.
Join us each Sunday in the Parish Hall at 11:30 AM for more discussion of what salvation is and is not.
Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church is located in California City, CA. Visit our website at ollcalcity.org.
Dibby Allan Green has a BA in Religious Studies (Westmont College, 1978) and MA in Theology (Augustine Institute, 2019), is a lay Catholic hermit, and a parishioner of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish.