anathema---explanation/

http://www.ncregister.com/blog/jimmy-akin/are-you-anathema-how-about-your-protestant-friend

also from comment  43      here: http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2013/01/holy-church-finding-jesus-as-a-reverted-catholic-a-testimonial-response-to-chris-castaldo/

For example, the “anathemas” pronounced by Catholic general councils do not “damn” anybody to hell. What they do is turn over to Satan for chastisement those among the baptized who, under the authority of the Church and fully understanding her solemnly proclaimed doctrine, nevertheless reject it. But I have found that most Protestants are like you: They don’t fully understand said teaching, and cannot in any case be presumed blameworthy for rejecting it, because they were formed in some established tradition premised on rejecting it, and thus can’t be held fully accountable for rejecting it.

from comment 44

 . The Catholic Church has throughout history formally decreed many things to be heresy: monophysism, Nestorianism, etc.; Lutheran conceptions of justification simply join the list of many other heresies. Those in the Catholic Church who preached such things were formally excommunicated and were no longer in communion with the Church. This is not the same thing as condemning them to hell, nor is it claiming they are in no sense Christian. The Church has no list of “heretics in hell,” because the anathema is a tool of church discipline, a handing over of one to Satan in the hope of their repentence (1 Cor 5:5), not a determination of one’s final spiritual state. You are right to say that the Council of Trent is still considered wholly true doctrine by the Catholic Church. But Trent is just as much a historical document that needs to be understood as speaking to a particular group of people – i.e. those within the Catholic Church who sought to teach doctrines formally deemed by the Church as heresy (e.g. justification by grace through faith alone). A 21st century Protestant cannot be anathematized from what he or she was never part of. Neither are such Protestants, whose understanding or relationship to Catholicism is informed by what their parents, local church, or favorite Protestant literature, held accountable in the same way as someone who, teaching or worshipping within the Church, knows what the Church teaches, and actively seeks to undermine Catholic doctrine by believing or teaching heresy. This is explained briefly in CCC 817-818.

from comment 49

 If you doubt my contention that Trent did not (and does not) condemn today’s non-antinomian Protestants, I urge you (when you have the time, of course, that is– I know that you have many people here to which to reply!) to spend some serious time pondering the information at these two links:http://www.zenit.org/en/articles/pope-clarifies-luther-s-idea-of-justificationhttp://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/documents/rc_pc_chrstuni_doc_31101999_cath-luth-joint-declaration_en.html

also comment 46 http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/07/ecclesial-deism/

 First, the Catholic Church has never taught that all non-Catholic Christians are damned to hell. The Council of Florence, which Trent reaffirmed, taught infallibly that non-Catholics must attain unity with the Catholic Church “before death” in order to be saved. That’s because previous general councils had dogmatized the Cyprianic doctrine extra ecclesiam nulla salus. But the question what is necessary and sufficient for union with the Church was not clearly and irreformably addressed by Florence or any other instrument of the extrarordinary magisterium. Therefore, there was some room for development of doctrine on that question—and Rome used that room in subsequent centuries.

Like most ecclesiastics since Augustine, the Fathers of Florence believed that formal membership in the Catholic Church is generally necessary for salvation. But in addition to the usual means of water baptism and a confession of faith either by the baptisand or their proxies, the tradition accepted baptism by “explicit desire” (Aquinas’ phrase) as sufficient in the case of catechumens who, through no fault of their own, die before baptism. Also accepted as sufficient was baptism by “blood,” which meant martyrdom for adults; but the case of the Holy Innocents indicated that such baptism need not be accompanied by any sort of desire in those who were not guilty of actual sin; and the case of the OT “righteous,” liberated by Christ from the underworld, indicates that the desire itself need not have been explicit in life even among those who had sinned but somehow repented. That permitted the question, broached explicitly by Catholic theologians after the discovery of the “New World,” whether some people who had never heard the Gospel could be “baptized” by “implicit” desire, and thus joined to the Church before death, rather than having to suffer the bad moral luck of going to hell just because they had never heard the Gospel. Note well: that question was broached before, during, and after the Council of Trent.

By the mid-19th century, Rome recognized that “invincible ignorance” of the Gospel was exculpatory, so that the invincibly ignorant who nonetheless sought and loved truth by grace could be saved; by the time of Vatican II, it was recognized that such ignorance could obtain in the case of pagans, Jews and schismatics. To be sure, that is not entirely compatible with the prevailing view of the Fathers of Florence. But since that view had itself had neither been held and taught with diachronic consensus from the Church’s beginning, nor been formally defined, it could not be considered irreformable doctrine and, in fact, has never been presented as such by the Church. Hence, Rome’s development of doctrine on this question, culminating in Vatican II’s Lumen Gentium and Unitatis Redintegratio, does not negate any irreformable doctrine.

from comment 184 here:http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2013/01/holy-church-finding-jesus-as-a-reverted-catholic-a-testimonial-response-to-chris-castaldo/

Mike Liccione is best equipped to defend his statement in #43, but I would offer that often the rhetoric and emotions that come with these topics can often obfuscate the meaning of terms and their application. The joint statement on justification between the Lutheran World Federation and the Catholic Church in 1999 suggests that further discussion and explanation of what theological terms mean and how they operate can often clarify to a degree where agreement is possible. Per my comment in #44, one cannot be “anathema,” from something of which they are not a member. For the Catholic Church to anathematize a born-and-bred Protestant would have as much meaning as the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod excommunicating me from their denomination, of which I have never been a member. Given the context of the Council, the anathema is directed towards those in communion with the Catholic Church who teach a particular understanding of justification, in that they are viewed as not in communion with the Church. It doesn’t speak to their eternal destiny, only where they stand in view of church discipline. Besides, given what a confessional Reformed Protestant believes about the Catholic Church, would he or she really want to be able to receive communion?

547 http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2013/03/jason-stellman-tells-his-conversion-story/

You’re treating the concept of communion with the Catholic Church as if it were binary: one is either all the way “in” or all the way “out.” That’s a common misunderstanding, but that’s not the concept the Church herself employs. If you look carefully at the quotation from Vatican II that I offered you in #541, you’ll readily see that the Church treats communion with herself not as binary, but as a matter of degree. Thus she says that non-Catholic Christians, just by virtue of their baptism, are in “real” but “imperfect” communion with the Church. Thus it’s possible for them to be saved without becoming formally Catholic–so long as they strive to do such truth as they believe, without being culpable for not believing the whole truth.

I think what drives your conceptual error is another conceptual error: one about “anathematization.” When the Church condemns a given view with a dogmatic canon containing an anathema, that should not be understood to mean that everybody who holds that view is going to hell, or even that they are culpable for holding such a view. It means that the Church turns over to Satan for chastisement people who are culpable for holding such a view. Yet nobody but God really knows who is and is not culpable for failing to accept this-or-that aspect of divinely revealed truth. I suggest you read this brief article for further corroboration and clarification.

comment 553

Another example is how you run with a theological ambiguity. You say: “I rest in Christ’s merits alone and believe nothing of my merits contributes (or any such language) to that salvation.” Well, there’s a sense in which I can affirm that as Catholic. Whatever merits I may have derive solely from divine grace, by which the indwelling Spirit transforms my deeds into his own. It is in that “synergistic” way that I become what St. Peter called a “partaker of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4). That’s how both Catholicism and Orthodoxy view the relationship between grace and human action. As a certain sort of Protestant, of course, you believe that only by affirming “monergism”–i.e. that divine grace operates to sanctify us instead of and despite any of our deeds–that you can acknowledge the sovereignty of grace and be saved. Now I believe that monergism is another conceptual error: it posits yet another “either-or” that should be a “both-and.” But in my experience, firm adherence to monergism is usually explained by the fact that monergism is a key component of the Protestant traditions in which many people are raised. Perhaps that describes your case; if it does, then I doubt you can be deemed culpable from a Catholic standpoint. And as a non-Catholic, you’re certainly in no position to judge your own moral responsibility for your position in Catholic terms.

I suggest you just relax and not feel yourself condemned by the Catholic Church. You are not.

comment 52 http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2011/10/vandrunen-on-catholic-inclusivity-and-change/

I’m wondering if you can help me out. I’ve been studying the Council of Trent’s famous Decree Concerning Justification, and I ran into a confusing line in Chapter XVI (emphasis mine):

After this Catholic doctrine on justification, which whosoever does not faithfully and firmly accept cannot be justified, it seemed good to the holy council to add to these canons, that all may know not only what they must hold and follow, but also what to avoid and shun.

How do we Catholics reconcile that definitive statement with Lumen Gentium 16, which says:

Those also can attain to salvation who through no fault of their own do not know the Gospel of Christ or His Church, yet sincerely seek God and moved by grace strive by their deeds to do His will as it is known to them through the dictates of conscience.

I thought the Church taught the possibility, though not necessarily the likelihood, of salvation for even those beyond formal Church membership, especially our Protestant brothers and sisters. Yet how does that, or the above section from Lumen Gentium, fit with the statement from Trent? No Protestant I know would “faithfully and firmly” accept the Catholic doctrine on justification, so how could they possibly be saved under the Trentine rubric?

The statement in Trent is limited to those who know the divine authority of the Church, and know what is her teaching regarding justification, but refuse to believe it or accept it. It is not making a claim about those who are invincibly ignorant either of the Church’s identity and divine authority and/or her teaching concerning justification. This is why the statement is not claiming either that baptized infants believe something about justification or that they are lost until they come to believe Trent’s doctrine of justification. Lumen Gentium, on the other hand, in the quotation you cite, is referring precisely to those persons in a condition of invincible ignorance. So the statement from Trent is referring to persons not in invincible ignorance, while the statement from Lumen Gentium is referring to personsin invincible ignorance. Hence the two statements are not contradictory, because each is referring to what is true of persons in an epistemic condition different from the other.

comment 53

Where in Trent does it state its limited applicability to only those who know the divine authority of the Church and/or her teaching on justification?

This “where in Trent does it state its limited applicability” question is a ‘Protestantish’ kind of question, because it presupposes that all Church documents are intended to be self-interpreting [i.e. give internally the sufficient explanation of their meaning to all persons, regardless of their epistemic/theological formation], much as Protestants treat Scripture as perspicuous (i.e. self-interpreting). But Church documents are written by Catholics for Catholics, and so they do not provide internally all that a person of any background, tradition, formation, etc. needs to know to interpret them rightly. They are written with the understanding that they are to be interpreted according to the Tradition by those formed and trained within the Tradition, just as Scripture is rightly interpreted according to Tradition and within the community preserving that Tradition. (See “The Tradition and the Lexicon.”) This difference (between the way Catholics and Protestants approach both Scripture and the documents of the Church) not only causes Protestants in some cases to draw different interpretive conclusions from Scripture than does the Catholic Church, but it also causes some persons to claim that there are contradictions between Church documents, where in actuality there are no contradictions. This has been an issue, for example, in the question of the destiny of unbaptized infants. I responded to this in comment #69 of the “Signs of Predestination” thread. Notice there the video of then-Archbishop Burke, and his answer to the question regarding how to reconcile the teaching of Pope Eugenius IV on circumcision with the later teaching of Pope Benedict XIV regarding circumcision. It is another example of “implicit qualification” such as that belonging to the statement in Trent cited above. In short, Trent does not have to say “this injunction is restricted to persons not in invincible ignorance” in order for it to mean and be understood by the Church to be referring only to persons not in invincible ignorance.

Would it be correct to say then that the Council of Trent, including its associated canons and anathemas, were written by Catholics for Catholics and are thus not applicable to modern Protestants? That among Protestants, they only applied to the original reformers who, at least at one time, were within the Catholic Church?

Yes, that is correct. Now, of course this is not to be understood as a doctrinal relativism. The *doctrines* condemned in the canons are perpetually condemned. So if a Protestant holds to a doctrine anathemetized by one or more of the canons, he is holding a false doctrine. But that does not entail that *he* is condemned, or that the canon anathemetizes *him.* See Jimmy Akin’s post, and hisolder article on this subject.

from comment 65 http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2012/02/making-my-way-to-the-church-christ-founded-2/#comment-90444  :

Being excommunicated doesn’t cut one off from God, but from the sacraments, Christian fellowship, etc. A just excommunication serves to “wake up” someone who is imperiling their soul and may not know it or may not care. It is a road sign saying “Turn back now!” And while it doesn’t deprive someone of their union with God if they’re in a state of grace, only sin can do that, it does remove from them the spiritual aids, again, with the idea of bringing them back.

Imagine this, Christ is the Father, and the Church is the Mother. And this is because she shares in the father’s role of governing the family. If the father is away for an extended amount of time, the mother does have the authority to make rules and change them, to apply punishments, etc, and these judgments would, hopefully, be supported by the father.

The Church is our mother, and she may make and change rules in order to protect us, her children, from spiritual harm. She has this authority delegated to her. What child would insist that his mother can’t be representing his father because his mother changes the bedtime? Likewise, an excommunication is like being grounded, sent to your room, or kicked out of the house.

Thinking of the Church as a family, the Family of God, rather than a courtroom may help understand Catholicism “from the inside”.

The authority of the Church is at the service of protecting revelation and ensuring that our deepening understanding of it doesn’t go astray. Who still teaches the indivisibility of marriage, and enforces it? Who still teaches the intrinsic immorality of abortion, or even more specifically, of contraception?

Theosis

Here is a paper written on this subject--over 200 pages---this particularly has to do with the relationship of theosis to Paul's theology : http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/219/1/BCB_Christosis_Thesis_-_Final.pdf

see also the post on Union with Christ here : http://nannykim-catholicconsiderations.blogspot.com/2012/08/union-with-christ.html


below from http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/09/horton-on-being-made-one-flesh-with-christ/
Ultimately, we do not need mere benefits: we need nothing less than to be made partakers of the divine nature in order to enter into divine life and obtain the Beatific Vision. We need to be joined ontologically to the divine nature, as Christ is ontologically joined to human nature. Even the presence of the Spirit with or in us does not entail that we have been made partakers of the divine nature, because the Spirit is present everywhere, and yet not everything is a partaker of the divine nature. What we need is real participation in Christ’s divine nature, through participation in His human nature; this is the meaning of John 6. And through our Eucharistic participation in the one Bread which is Christ Himself, we who are many are one Body, which is His Mystical Body.²

..............................................

 In the Catholic tradition, by contrast, we are co-workers with Christ precisely because we are truly members of His Mystical Body. We are truly the hands and feet of His Mystical Body, of which He is the Head. By denying that we are Christ’s hands and feet, and by appealing to the idea of covenant, Horton seems to conceive of the union of Christ’s people with Christ as merely a stipulation of the divine will, not an ontological union, not a “fusion”, as he put it. But the Church’s tradition handed down to us from the early Church Fathers maintains that Christ took on human nature, so that we might become partakers of His divine nature, through union with Him. As St. Athanasius said:

“For He was made man that we might be made God.” (On the Incarnation, 54.3)

[Many more quotes given in the article]

There is no indication in Horton’s statement that through the sacraments we become partakers of the divine nature, as St. Peter stated in 2 Peter 1:4. But, if we are not made partakers of the divine nature, then there is no need for Christ to have become a partaker of human nature. The whole point of Christ becoming a partaker of human nature was so that we, through ontological union with Christ, could become partakers of His divine nature. That is the purpose of the divine promises, to bring about this ontological union between Christ and His Bride, as one flesh. 

.............................just as Christ also does the church, because we are members of His body. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the Church. (Eph 5:22-32)

................

to deny that Christ is one flesh with His Church is to claim that a husband has greater unity with his wife than Christ has with His Church. But according to St. Paul the union of husband and wife is a type, and the type is never greater than that which it typifies. Therefore, if the husband is one flesh with his wife, then it is false that we through our incorporation into Christ’s Mystical Body do not become one flesh with Christ. We are members of His Mystical Body with which He is one, and which is also His Spouse. That one-flesh union of Christ with His Spouse is perfected at His return, when we shall see Him face to face. But even here and now, through our baptism we are incorporated into His Mystical Body, and thus made “one flesh” with Him. The two becoming one flesh began at the incarnation. We do not become His hands and feet only at the Parousia; we become His hands and feet at our baptism, when we are washed by His Spirit and made members of His Body, the Church. Through the Eucharist we feed on His body, blood, soul and divinity, and in this way are granted to participate in His human nature and in His divine nature. If we were not made one flesh with Christ, we would be lost, because only through the hypostatic union can we participate in the divine nature. Only by union with His flesh do we, through the hypostatic union of the God-man Jesus Christ, participate in His divine nature. And only by participating in the divine nature can we enter into eternal life.

Catholic Encyclopedia, article Supernatural Gift(http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06553a.htm)

A supernatural gift may be defined as something conferred on nature that is above all the powers (vires) of created nature. When God created man, He was not content with bestowing upon him the essential endowments required by man’s nature. He raised him to a higher state, adding certain gifts to which his nature had no claim. They comprise qualities and perfections, forces and energies, dignities and rights, destination to final objects, of which the essential constitution of man is not the principle; which are not required for the attainment of the final perfection of the natural order of man; and which can only be communicated by the free operation of God’s goodness and power. Some of these are absolutely supernatural, i.e. beyond the reach of all created nature (even of the angels), and elevate the creature to a dignity and perfection natural to God alone; others are only relatively supernatural (preternatural), i.e. above human nature only and elevate human nature to that state of higher perfection which is natural to the angels. The original state of man comprised both of these, and when he fell he lost both. Christ has restored to us the absolutely supernatural gifts, but the preternatural gifts He has not restored. …
The absolutely supernatural gifts, which alone are the supernatural properly so called, are summed up in the divine adoption of man to be the son and heir of God. This expression, and the explanations given of it by the sacred writers, make it evident that the sonship is something far more than a relation founded upon the absence of sin; it is of a thoroughly intimate character, raising the creature from its naturally humble estate, and making it the object of a peculiar benevolence and complaisance on God’s part, admitting it to filial love, and enabling it to become God’s heir, i.e. a partaker of God’s own beatitude. …
Divine adoption is a new birth of the soul (John 1:12-13 and 3:5; 1 John 3:9; 5:1; 1 Peter 1:3 and 1:23; James 1:18; Titus 3:5, Ephesians 2:5). This regeneration implies the foundation of a higher state of being and life, resulting from a special Divine influence, and admitting us to the dignity of sons of God. “For whom he foreknew, he also predestinated to be made conformable to the image of his Son; that he might be the firstborn amongst many brethren” (Romans 8:29). cf. also 2 Corinthians 3:18; Galatians 3:26-27 and 4:19; Romans 13:14. As a consequence of this Divine adoption and new birth we are made “partakers of the divine nature” (theias koinonoi physeos, 2 Peter 1:4). The whole context of this passage and the passages already quoted show that this expression is to be taken as literally as possible not, indeed, as a generation from the substance of God, but as a communication of Divine life by the power of God, and a most intimate indwelling of His substance in the creature. Hence, too, the inheritance is not confined to natural goods. It embraces the possession and fruition of the good which is the natural inheritance of the Son of God, viz., the beatific vision.

Early History of the Bible

http://www.cathtruth.com/catholicbible/earlyhis.htm

on censor: http://smu.edu/bridwell_tools/specialcollections/Heresy&Error/Heresy.22.htm

concerning Tyndale: http://www.veritasbible.com/resources/articles/Tyndale%E2%80%99s_Condemnation_Vindicated

concerning reading of the Bible by the lay people: http://catholicbridge.com/catholic/did_the_catholic_church_forbid_bible_reading.php

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible_translations_in_the_Middle_Ages


also here in comment  120 http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2013/03/jason-stellman-tells-his-conversion-story/

From Henry Graham’s book Where We Got the Bible, Ch.11:
http://www.catholicapologetics.info/apologetics/protestantism/wbible.htm#CHAPTER XI

The translators of the Authorised Version, in their ‘Preface’, referring to previous translations of the Scriptures into the language of the people, make the following important statements. After speaking of the Greek and Latin Versions, they proceed:

‘The godly-learned were not content to have the Scriptures in the language which themselves understood, Greek and Latin … but also for the behoof and edifying of the unlearned which hungered and thirsted after righteousness, and had souls to be saved as well as they, they provided translations into the Vulgar for their countrymen, insomuch that most nations under Heaven did shortly after their conversion hear Christ speaking unto them in their Mother tongue, not by the voice of their minister only but also by the written word translated.’
Now, as all these nations were certainly converted by the Roman Catholic Church, for there was then no other to send missionaries to convert anybody, this is really a valuable admission. The Translators of 1611, then, after enumerating many converted nations that had the Vernacular Scriptures, come to the case of England, and include it among the others.
…
Much about that time,’ they say (1360), even in our King Richard the Second’s days, John Trevisa translated them into English, and many English Bibles in written hand are yet to be seen that divers translated, as it is very probable, in that age . … So that, to have the Scriptures in the mother tongue is not a quaint conceit lately taken up, either by the Lord Cromwell in England [or others] … but hath been thought upon, and put in practice of old, even from the first times of the conversion of any nation.’

…people who could read at all in the Middle Ages could read Latin: hence there was little need for the Church to issue the Scriptures in any other language. But as a matter of fact she did in many countries put the Scriptures in the hands of her children in their own tongue. (I) We know from history that there were popular translations of the Bible and Gospels in Spanish, Italian, Danish, French, Norwegian, Polish, Bohemian and Hungarian for the Catholics of those lands before the days of printing, but we shall confine ourselves to England, so as to refute once more the common fallacy that John Wycliff was the first to place an English translation of the Scriptures in the hands of the English people in 1382.
…
Thomas More, Lord Chancellor of England under Henry VIII who says: ‘The whole Bible long before Wycliff’s day was by virtuous and well-learned men translated into the English tongue, and by good and godly people with devotion and soberness well and reverently read’ (Dialogues III). Again, ‘The clergy keep no Bibles from the laity but such translations as be either not yet approved for good, or such as be already reproved for naught (i.e., bad, naughty) as Wycliff’s was. For, as for old ones that were before Wycliff’s days, they remain lawful and be in some folks’ hand. I myself have seen, and can show you, Bibles, fair and old which have been known and seen by the Bishop of the Diocese, and left in laymen’s hands and women’s too, such as he knew for good and Catholic folk, that used them with soberness and devotion.’

Combine the above facts with the facts that ANY book in the pre printing press era was worth months of wages, and that literacy was low, and the idea the Catholic Church kept the bible from the people is really strange. In fact, even when I was Reformed, I was defending Christendom on this point against KJV only fundamentalists.

from comment 122:
What we disagree about is not the importance of the Bible or the study thereof, but about three other questions: (1) Why should the Bible be considered divinely inspired and thus inerrant, and (2) How should it be authoritatively interpreted? (3) Whatever the answer to (2), why should we accept it? As a Catholic, I can and do answer those questions. So far at least, you have not even attempted to do so.

ordaining women--why no

http://badwolfcomplex.tumblr.com/post/34208012700

church fathers on the subject: http://www.catholic.com/tracts/women-and-the-priesthood

reason and philosphy---a place for them

http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/05/wilson-vs-hitchens-a-catholic-perspective/    also:

also

The Gospel--stuff about it

A look contrasting the gospel of reformed protestants to Catholics  found here: http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2018/01/king-davids-clean-heart-gospel-passion/

Secondly,  I want to include some notes about the gospel taken from a Catholic video by the Augustine Institute--These are just some scattered notes on the gospel from various videos and from Ott and then below these notes are links and other explanations.

Because of sin we owe an infinite debt to God.  Ott explains on page 178:

As a deed of a creature sin is indeed finite, but as insult to the infinite God it is infinite, and accordingly demands an atonement of infinite value

Ott page 188:

Christ's actions possess an intrinsic infinite value, because the principium quod is the Divine person of the Logos.  Thus Christ's  atonement was, through its intrinsic value, sufficient to counterbalance the infinite insult offered to God, which is inherent in sin.

 We broke God's infinite law and incurred an infinite debt that we were unable to repay.  Jesus as"God became man" can represent us as a man but also has ability to pay the debt we incurred to God by his crucifixion and death on the cross- and He offers us new life though his resurrection.  

Sin caused an infinite gap between God and man:
    
                                                                 God
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                 Man

A supernatural relationship requires an infinite act of love to overcome the infinite gap caused by sin. God became man to overcome the problem of sin. His love and obedience have infinite value and overcomes the divide and brings us to unity with God and the Church.

Why does an all good and all loving God demand death?  God is loving and just and the disorder in the universe has to be set right.  For example, if a man's son broke a window, as a Dad he could forgive the kid, but it would not fix the window. The Dad can choose to fix it himself as a Dad if the kid is too little or incapable of fixing it.  Christ chose to die to fix the disorder caused by sin. The disorder in the universe is that we did not love.  So what does God do to fix that disorder?  He comes down and becomes one of us and He loves completely.  Jesus pours himself out on the cross in love of us.  This sacrifice gives up something to God. 
God made us to live sacrificial love.  This is why we also are called to bear the cross and when we deny self we find fulfillment and happiness.  If we don't deny self then we are enslaved to self.  We need to embrace the cross and give the gift of love to God and others uniting our suffering to his. 

By his death we are freed from sin
By his resurrection he gives new life
By his ascension into heaven He precedes us into his kingdom

Jesus invites us to participate in the mystery of His death and resurrection by uniting our entire life--our works, joy, suffering with His cross. We live in a broken world and all of us will face suffering. It is what we do with the suffering--we will experience great fruit spiritually when we unite our suffering to his cross.  We choose self or the cross.

Christ redeems us from sin.  Adam in the garden did not obey God. Christ in the garden of Gethsemane chose to obey and this led to the cross. The early church Fathers called the cross a tree and Christ becomes the new tree of life; the new Adam cancels out the disobedience of Adam and through the tree restores us to full communion with God.

We will be judged on this unity to Jesus. ....whether we choose to love self or love God. He gives the Holy Spirit through his Church that we might live out his plan and make right choices so we can live forever in heaven. He invites us to walk with him everyday, but we have to cooperate with that grace--we have to allow that life of Christ into our own lives and we do that and experience the fullness of life and love he desires us to have with him forever. 



THE STORY OF SALVATION

1. Creation. God created man to share in his own goodness and love. Man was made to know and love God. They were capable of giving themselves in love (Adam and Eve). 

Originally man and woman had unity with God on the vertical level and harmony between themselves on the horizontal level.  Humanity was the united family of God reflecting the unity of God Himself.

2.  The fall.  Man and woman sinned ; they disobeyed God and refused to give themselves in love.  This sin broke our relationship with God and broke the harmony between man and woman. This original sin also brought death into the world and wounded our human nature making it difficult for Adam and Eve's descendants to know the truth and to do the good.  We all now have an inclination towards sin called concupiscence.  

3.  Redemption.  God sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to die for our sins offering on our behalf the perfect gift of love that restores us to the Father and the Father sent the Son to send the Holy Spirit to fill us with His very life.  Jesus did not come to save us individually; He established the universal Catholic Church to gather the broken family of man to the united family of God and the Church passes on the teachings of Christ and through the sacraments dispenses the graces He won for us on the cross and to equip us to do the good we find so difficult to do --to enable us to live like Christ ....indeed to enable us to live in Christ so that we may be with him forever and ever in heaven.

We must be in union with Him; meeting Him in prayer, receiving grace through the sacraments, making decisions daily with the heart of a hero. There is a drama playing out.....we are part of a larger story. Life has dignity and we each have a role to play and it is in direct service to the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. There are 2 kingdoms. The Kingdom of Jesus and the Kingdom of the Devil. We have to choose which side we want to fight for....for Him or against Him.


[a great explanation of the Catholic view of the gospel can be found at the link here. This includes: 

In Catholic theology, if we do not have agape, then we do not have friendship with God. And if we die outside of friendship with God, then we cannot enter into heaven, which is eternal friendship with God. So in the Catholic paradigm, having agape is absolutely essential for salvation. Someone who believes in God, but does not haveagape, is not a friend of God, and hence does not have salvation. So faith is necessary in order to have agape, but faith without agape is not sufficient for salvation. As I have argued elsewhere, the Bible does not definitively teach that we are justified by faith-without-agape; Catholics understand justification by faith to refer to justification by faith-informed-by-agape.

a longer explanation is here: http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/07/the-gospel-and-the-meaning-of-life/

Below is from another article the link is after: "To be more precise, the Incarnation, life, passion, death, and resurrection of Christ are historical facts which underlay and, in that sense, support “the gospel” message; but they are not the gospel message full stop. The gospel message essentially entails explaining or communicating how those historical events impact the situation of man in relation to God. The question is not merely what historical facts obtain such that reconciliation and communion with God is now possible; but rather, how do human beings appropriate the potential salvific benefits of those events. Notice that in Peter’s sermon in Acts, he recounts the historical facts/events which constitute the historical foundation and possibility of human salvation. However, the result of that speech left the crowd hanging with respect to the most crucial question: “what must we do?”, or to paraphrase, “how can the potential reconciliation with God obtained in those historical events just recounted be applied to me/us?”. Of course, Peter responds “repent and be baptized, etc”. The point is that communication of the historical facts surrounding the Christ events are necessary but not sufficient constituents of the “gospel message”; what is also required, and in many ways more existentially pressing, is an explanation concerning how the salvific potentials related to those historical facts might be applied to the individual or the community in his/their place and time."

The above quote from comment 451 found: http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2012/09/i-fought-the-church-and-the-church-won/#comment-39043 a continuation of this quote below:

Your demand for exactly the same propositional content smacks positivism to me.

I have never made such a demand. I also recognize that there are many different, yet compatible ways to explain how the Christ-events are applied to human beings so as to achieve reconciliation and reunion with God. What I think necessary is that whatever propositional, communicative expressions, are used in explaining the appropriation of the benefits of the Christ-events, must avoid contradiction – i.e. they must be compatible. Explaining that Jesus, John, Paul, etc use different words, expressions, or emphasis to communicate or explain different lived dimensions relating to the question of how the work of Christ is applied to the human soul poses no problem whatsoever, since these are all compatible with one another. The problem with your notion of “spiritual bond”, and also with the sweeping picture you give of theological personages through history whom you imply are really all pointing to the same essential gospel message, is that it is factually false. For example, the propositional content, or communicative expressions, used to explain “the gospel” by many of the Catholic theologians which you include in your litany in #438, is incompatible with the propositional content, or communicative expressions, use to explain “the gospel” by Protestant writers such as John Calvin or Karl Barth.

There is a reason why the Reformers claimed that Sola Fide was an issue upon which the Reformation “stands or falls”. They were absolutely convinced that their soteriology was not compatible with that of the Catholic Church, especially as defined by Trent. Likewise, a great number of the fragmentations which have occurred during the last 5 centuries within Protestantism do not involve mere issues of adiaphora. They involve real cases in which two distinct propositional accounts of how the salvific benefits of the Christ-events are to be applied to human beings in a saving way, are patently contradictory. Indeed, many of the sectarian splits ensued precisely because the dividing parties became convinced that maintaining communion with a group that denied some particular soteriological point would amount to a denial of the gospel message itself. Their division was perceived as an unfortunate, yet ultimately necessary, step to ensuring that the “gospel message” was not muddled or diluted by sacrificing a non-negotiable aspect of the “gospel message” for the sake of mere human harmony."

ME

When I consider the Reformation , I see many damaging results.  I am not saying that there were no good aspects that occurred from it, since God can take things meant for harm and use them for good.

Having been a Protestant for 59 years I have seen the dividing influence that stems ultimately from the Reformation’s spirit (in my opinion).  When I came to know Christ personally I was a member of a Conservative Baptist church. This church has split.  Then I became a member of a Reformed Baptist church which also ended up having divisions over how to do missionary work causing a split.  Next I was in a reformed Baptist church which basically went on a radical view of the OT and the law thus dividing it from some other RB churches.  Next I was a member of a Reformed Presbyterian church which decided to split from that to become PCA. Then I was in a PCA church which split and one half became OPC.  Last of all I was a member of an Episcopal church which has now left TEC.  (I moved a lot and was seeking to be in a local reformed church—this partly explains why I was a member of so many different kinds)

When I look back on all of this I see constant division. Christ’s prayer for unity has fallen on deaf ears in the Protestant movement. 

Secondly, I think a weakness in the Protestant movement, aside from the many divisions, is that the emphasis on faith alone almost is an inference that following Christ is not important. It tends to infer that we can have Christ as Savior and not as Lord.  But a Christian has to be a believer in Christ who is Lord and Savior---a follower of Christ. Therefore obedience, or seeking to obey through grace and the power of the Spirit, is not optional for salvation. Here I think the Catholics strike the correct balance. Jesus says in Luke 6:46ff that there are those that call Him Lord” and do not do what I say” and he teaches these are those who have “built a house upon the ground without any foundation…..and the river burst against it and immediately it collapsed, and the ruin of that house was great.”  You have the example of the parable with the two sons.  Which one was the son who obeyed?  Not the one that said he would do, but the one that actually did the thing asked of him. Jesus throughout the gospels explains the importance of obedience in our walk. The problem with the Pharisees, was partly that they spoke the talk but did not do .  Paul, James , and Peter all speak to this.   I feel the Protestants sometimes do disservice to the gospel when they neglect what Christ has said---to go into the world and make disciples….baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you. “ Observance of Christ’s commands is not optional.

Why is the Catholic’s gospel good news? There are many reasons but one in particular I will give.  When we were born we were separated from God and under wrath.  But the good news of the gospel is that Christ has lived, died, resurrected, and intercedes so that we can have a relationship restored. We have our hearts cleansed,  we have new hearts wherein the law of God is written, and we are given grace to continue to live in relationship with God almighty and to grow in this and to be as II Peter states in chapter one verse 4 “partakers of the divine nature”.  The good news is spiritual life and a restored relationship to our God.  When we sin forgiveness is available as we confess and repent and our relationship contues to be maintained.  It is a living relationship---true---real----ongoing.

Peter Kreeft in his book on Catholic Christianity pg 130 asks , What must I do to be saved? His anser is Repent, believe and live in charity.

He fleshes these out--they correspond to the 3 theological virtues of faith , hope, charity. Repentance involves hope in Christ [includes certain knowledge of him]and seeking his forgiveness. Baptism involves faith, and acceptance of his forgiveness (we receive Christ in Baptism I Peter 3:21 Bap. now saves you). Charity--the love of Christ and the members of his body. Faith apart from works is dead--Matt 6:15 if we don't forgive God does not forgive us.

below: http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/10/a-reply-from-a-romery-person/ THE LINK IS here

In the Lutheran paradigm, what is essential for justification and by itself sufficient for justification is faith. In the Catholic paradigm, what is essential for justification is agape, but in this present life one cannot have agape without having faith and hope.³ Therefore, in the Catholic paradigm, only those persons are justified who have all three supernatural virtues: faith, hope and agape. And this is why from the Catholic point of view, the Lutheran position fails to recognize the necessity of agape for justification. This is precisely why Pope Benedict said in November of last year:

“For this reason Luther’s phrase: “faith alone” is true, if it is not opposed to faith in charity, in love.”⁴

This difference (between justification by faith alone, and justification by faith-informed-by-agape) has significant implications...................

In Catholic theology, on the cross Christ in His human nature bore the curse of death, and by His obedience in His human nature, He offered Himself to the Father as a sacrificial gift of love. In this way He gave to the Father something far more pleasing than all our sins were displeasing to the Father. In this way He in His human nature merited from the Father the gift of grace for all men. This is how our debt was paid, not by Christ bearing the wrath of the Father, but by offering Himself up in love to His Father and so meriting for us the gift of grace. We need grace to enter heaven because heaven is a supernatural end. We cannot attain a supernatural end by our own nature because a thing can act only in proportion to its own nature. But through His Passion Christ merited for all men the gift of grace, i.e. the gift of participation in the divine nature. And Christ established means by which we receive this grace; these means are the sacraments. Through baptism we are reborn, that is, we receive sanctifying grace, i.e. the life of God, participation in the divine nature. And through the Eucharist we grow in sanctifying grace, and in agape..............................................

The Catholic understanding is that to be “dead in sins” is to be without the life of God, i.e without sanctifying grace. That is what it means to be unregenerate. Since the fall of Adam, all human beings are born into the world without the life of God, i.e. without sanctifying grace and without agape. We call this privation of the life of God, “original sin.” Without sanctifying grace we still have a functioning intellect and a will. But we cannot love God with supernatural love (i.e. agape) because agape is present in us only if we have sanctifying grace, i.e. a participation in the divine life. So, without sanctifying grace we can know God as Creator simply by the things He has made, and we can have natural virtues. But we cannot know God as Father, and have faith, hope, andagape. Without agape, we cannot have friendship with God as Father. So without sanctifying grace, we cannot enter into heaven. According to Catholic doctrine, the unregenerate man cannot do things ordered to a supernatural end (i.e. heaven) because he is not a participant in the divine nature. Since he only has human nature, which is natural, he can only achieve a natural end. But heaven is a supernatural end. Hence, without sanctifying grace he cannot attain to a supernatural end.

According to the Catholic position, for those in the unregenerate condition, God must act first without us, in giving us grace, before we can freely move toward Him. (Otherwise we’d be semi-Pelagian, if we believed that we, without His grace, acted first toward Him as our supernatural end.) But our privation of the life of God does not require that we must be “regenerated” before we freely move toward Him. Catholic doctrine makes a distinction here between two forms of grace. One form, called ‘actual grace,’ is the grace by which God moves our hearts and minds. The other form, called ‘sanctifying grace,’ is that participation in the divine nature by which we are sanctified in our very soul and made sons of God. In Catholic theology regeneration means receiving sanctifying grace. A person who is moved by actual grace, but has not yet received sanctifying grace, is not yet regenerated. And in Catholic theology sanctifying grace comes through the sacrament of baptism, though it can (while still coming through the sacrament of baptism) precede the reception of that sacrament. But, in Catholic theology actual grace comes to us before regeneration, and actual grace first acts as operative grace (in which God moves us without us), and then by our participation actual grace acts as cooperative grace (God moving us with us), leading us to faith and baptism by which we receive sanctifying grace, and are thereby justified.

Lutheran and Reformed theology generally do not make the distinction between actual grace and sanctifying grace. They tend to maintain that a person cannot do anything until he is alive. And therefore regeneration is required in order for a person to cooperate. Hence, what Catholic theology refers to as ‘actual grace’ drops out of Reformed and Lutheran theology as something that precedes regeneration. Since Catholic theology understands ‘dead in sins’ as meaning the absence of divine life, but not the loss of intellect and will, therefore, Catholic theology does not need to maintain that regeneration must precede cooperation, because a person without sanctifying grace (i.e. without the life of God) may still by his intellect and will cooperate with actual grace.

......

Canon 5: “If anyone says that after the sin of Adam man’s free will was lost and destroyed. . . let him be anathema.”

This canon has to do with what happened to man at the Fall. In Lutheran theology man’s very nature was damaged, and his intellect and will were radically corrupted. In Catholic theology, at the Fall man lost sanctifying grace, lost agape, lost the four preternatural gifts, and suffered the four wounds of nature. Among those wounds of nature were ignorance in the intellect, and malice in the will. Each of man’s powers was wounded, though not destroyed, but man’s nature was not destroyed. We were human before the Fall, and we remain human after the Fall. (I have discussed this in more detail here.) But this canon need not separate Catholics and Protestants. Both Protestants and Catholics can agree that man after the Fall is incapable of turning to God, unless God first acts in us without us. We all agree that semi-Pelagianism is a heresy, so the objection to semi-Pelagianism need not be a point of contention between us.

GO TO THE LINK FOR THE FULL ARTICLE: HERE

In an old sermon (around 1400)  from the sermon "Moreover, for our sake He Was Crucified" found around page 240 here:

http://jasper-hopkins.info/SermonsCCLXXVI-CCXCIII.pdf

[section 26]Therefore, only the death of innocent Christ,

who offered Himself on the Cross for us, justifies those who are capable [of being justified]—those who are in Christ and who remain in

Him, those who walk as He [walked]. In Him the perfect love shown

in His death teaches that those who walk in love by following Him are

sons of God. Here below [we are sons of God] in expectancy; but

when [Christ] appears after our death, [then we shall be sons of God]

in reality, because we shall be like Him.

1 Corinthians 15

English Standard Version (ESV)

15 Now I would remind you, brothers,^[a] of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, ² and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.³ For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, ⁴ that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, ⁵ and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. ⁶ Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. ⁷ Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. ⁸ Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. ⁹ For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. ¹⁰ But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. ¹¹ Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed."

From the Catechism:

1846 The Gospel is the revelation in Jesus Christ of God's mercy to sinners.¹¹³ The angel announced to Joseph: "You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins."¹¹⁴ The same is true of the Eucharist, the sacrament of redemption: "This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins."¹¹⁵

1847 "God created us without us: but he did not will to save us without us."¹¹⁶ To receive his mercy, we must admit our faults. "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness."¹¹⁷

1848 As St. Paul affirms, "Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more."¹¹⁸ But to do its work grace must uncover sin so as to convert our hearts and bestow on us "righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."¹¹⁹ Like a physician who probes the wound before treating it, God, by his Word and by his Spirit, casts a living light on sin:

Conversion requires convincing of sin; it includes the interior judgment of conscience, and this, being a proof of the action of the Spirit of truth in man's inmost being, becomes at the same time the start of a new grant of grace and love: "Receive the Holy Spirit." Thus in this "convincing concerning sin" we discover a double gift: the gift of the truth of conscience and the gift of the certainty of redemption. The Spirit of truth is the Consoler.¹²

also this statement from comment  94     here  :Catholics, too, believed we are saved by “grace alone.” But our acknowledgement of this fact, once again, does not preclude our (graced) participation in this mystery.


Then there is a PDF file here http://www.ordopraedicatorum.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/cameron_goodnews.pdf

and here  comment 140 below: http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2013/03/jason-stellman-tells-his-conversion-story/

 Jason Stellman’s transcribed description of the Catholic / Apostolic Gospel during his journey to the Church…

When it comes to how the Gospel is applied to us…

The Son of God assumes a human nature and human flesh together with His divine person.

And he lived and died and rose again and ascended to heaven and gave the Holy Spirit.

And the Holy Spirit comes and is infused by God into our hearts (Romans 5:5).

God, in Christ, through the Spirit, does what the Law of Moses could not. Because what the Law could not do is empower. The Law could command. And it’s got 613 different commands. But It couldn’t empower.

But God, in Christ, through the Spirit has empowered us to not just understand what’s expected of us as Christians, but through the Spirit we are empowered to actually offer to God what it is he wanted all along. Which is love of God and neighbor.

That’s what Jesus, John, James and Paul all say explicitly.

That the Law is fulfilled in this, that you love the Lord your God with all your heart soul mind and strength and you love your neighbor as your self. This is what God wants.

This is what the Holy Spirit makes possible. This is what makes the New Covenant new.

What makes the New Covenant new is not just that it’s the latest covenant, and that there might be a newer one later on. But what makes it new is the fact that the Spirit is given to the Church to bring about the obedience of faith in God’s people. Such that we can offer not ourselves by ourselves — as Cain tried to offer the fruit of his own hands and it wasn’t accepted. And left to ourselves, we can’t offer to God our own works or our own righteousness and expect it to be accepted either — But in Christ I can offer to God myself. And in the Eucharist I can offer to God my sacrifice of thanksgiving. I can offer to him all that I am. This is what Adam was supposed to have done at the very beginning. He was to offer himself back in sacrificial self-giving love to his Creator. And now in Christ, I can do that.

This is what the Apostles were working with. This was their paradigm.

from Bryon here: http://principiumunitatis.blogspot.com/search/label/Gospel --stuff on the gospel  this has several articles on the gospel

and the quote below is from : http://principiumunitatis.blogspot.com/2008/07/prolegomena-to-gospel.html

 A better way to present the gospel to modern man is to start with our purpose in life: Do you know why you are here? Are you looking for the meaning of your life? We [Christians] know the meaning of life. It is to know, love and serve the God who made heaven and earth and all things, including us humans, whom He made in His very own image, to share in His divine life and have fellowship with Him eternally. Our first parents turned away from God and bequeathed sin, sorrow and death to us, but God has sent His Son to reconcile us to Himself. God's Son gave Himself to us, and now offers us His own divine Life, the very Life in which we were made to share eternally. We receive His divine Life through the sacraments which He established in His Mystical Body, the Church, before He returned to the Father. Believe and be baptized. Receive the Spirit without measure. In the sacrament of the Eucharist, Christ offers to you His Body and Blood. If you eat this Flesh, and drink this Blood, you will have in yourself the Life of God, the Life which you have longed for since you were a child, the divine Life than which there is nothing greater, and which alone truly satisfies the deepest yearning of the human soul. Jesus said, "As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also shall live because of Me." (St. John 6:57) And elsewhere, Jesus said, "Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst." (St. John 4:14) We never thirst again because we finally have found that alone which satisfies the human heart. Come, eat and drink without charge; Christ offers Himself to you freely, in love. This is why you exist: to know, love, and serve Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God. This is what you were made for; this is why you are here, right now, to know, love, and serve the One who made you. Nothing else will satisfy you, because what your heart most deeply longs for is God Himself.

end of quote

me here 159 comment  http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2013/03/jason-stellman-tells-his-conversion-story/

The catechism states:

1846 The Gospel is the revelation in Jesus Christ of God’s mercy to sinners.

We do have this good news that Jesus has come to save us. I think it is hard , at times, to make a statement to fit on a dime. When men preached the gospel in Acts the info depended on the state of the people being addressed since not everyone had the same understanding of life– that there is only one God, that we need a blood sacrifice etc. Some of the elements to be preached on might include the following, depending on the people being addressed:

1. God (who is Triune) is our Creator . Man is responsible to him.
Created by God Col 1:16
Made in God’s image Gen 1:26
Made to glorify God Rev 4:11, Made for God Col 1:16, Rom 11: 36
God desires our love Dt 6:5, Matt 22:37

2. Man’s problem
God is Holy Is 6:3
Man sinned and men are sinners Gen 2,3, Romans 5:19
Sin separates us from God Is 59:2
Sin results in death Rom 6:23
Sin results in judgment Heb 9:27
Sin results in eternal destruction 2 Thess 1:8-9

3. God’s remedy
God became incarnate (his Son) to make purification of sins Heb1:3
Christ is the only way to God Jn 14:6
Blood must be shed for forgiveness of sins Heb 9:22
Christ payed the penalty 1 Peter 3:18 (Christ died for sins once for all the just for the unjust)(Christ offered      himself as a sacrificial gift of love)
Christ was made to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God 2 Cor 5:21
God provides a new heart and His Spirit Ez 36:26, 2 Cor 3:18, Acts 2:38
God provides by his divine power a participation in the divine nature 2 Peter 1:5
God provides a church I Tim 3:15, includes sacraments Jn 6, I Cor 11:23ff, leaders to whom we obey Heb 13:17

4. Man’s responsibility
Repent Acts 2:38, Acts 17:30-31, Luke 24:47
Believe Jn 1:12, James 2:19, Acts 16:31, Jn 3:36
Baptism Acts 2:38, 1 Peter 3:21
Walk in the Spirit Gal 5:13-25, Rom 8:12-13, Heb 13:20-21
Forsake not the church or assembly Heb 10:2-26, includes partaking of the sacraments, obey the leaders etc

The Gospel then includes the Good news of Christ and the knowledge that we can be joined to him Him 2 Peter 1:4,5 . But there needs to be a fuller explanation of who Christ is, what he has done, and what repentance , baptism, belief means when one explains the gospel to our generation, right?

ME--too--furthermore the Good News tells us how we can know and fellowship with the living God--it is all about having a relationship with the living God.

from comment 74 in answer to this first paragraph below: http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2010/12/signs-of-predestination-a-catholic-discusses-election/

Another one is the Roman Catholic teaching (and that of others) that some measure of grace must precede so you can use your free will to do it yourself, whichever way that is exactly stated (not to over-read, or under-read, or quote ad nauseam). If there is the slightest thing other than the cross of Christ held before my eyes to believe in, need, require, do, chose, it falls all back on me. What I do has to be zero, with an infinite zero’s behind the decimal point.

That is a false gospel, because it makes faith, hope, and love optional. God does not believe for us. “Choose this day whom you will serve.” If we don’t choose, but God chooses for us, then God is a liar when He commands us to choose. God does not hope for us. He does not love for us; He commands us to love. No one who has not love can be saved. That’s what John’s first epistle is all about. So we must do some things; we must believe, we must hope, and we must love. If what we had to do were “nothing,” then St. Peter greatly misled the people in his sermon on Pentecost. When they, being pierced to the heart by his preaching concerning Christ’s death and resurrection, asked in response, “What shall we do?” if your “we do nothing” gospel were the Apostles’ message, then Peter would have said, “Nothing. It is all done. You don’t need to do a thing. I just thought you should know what Christ did for you. You all can go home now.” But that’s not what he said. Rather, he proclaimed, “Repent, and let each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of the your sins.” (Acts 2:38) Either Peter had not yet learned the gospel, or the ‘gospel’ you are advocating is a message altogether different from the one proclaimed by the Apostles under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

This also serves God’s honor as Savior. If there is some Thing required, it detracts from God being Savior and the whole agony of Christ on the cross is nullified.

God is not a glory-monger; He is love. And for that reason, He calls His saints to share in His glory. That’s what heaven is. We don’t share in His glory by being in a place or proximity. We share in His glory, first by sharing in His sufferings: “fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him.” (Rom 8:17) In this life we labor with Him, as His co-laborers. (1 Cor 3:9) If God were a glory-monger, it would not make sense for Jesus to urge us to seek the glory that is from God. “How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God?” (John 5:44) If God were a glory-monger, He wouldn’t give glory to men. But Jesus said to the Father, “The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one.” (John 17:22) And St. Paul says that our afflictions in this present life are producing an eternal weight of glory. “For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison.” (2 Cor 4:17) If God were a glory-monger, then instead of saying, “It was for this He called you through our gospel, that you may gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ,” (2 Thess 2:14) the Holy Spirit would have said, “It was for this He called you through our gospel, that you may give all the glory to our Lord Jesus Christ.” If God were a glory-monger and wished that His creatures had no share in His glory, then why would St. Peter write that the believers are “full of glory”? (1 Pet 1:8) Why would he describe himself as a “partaker also of the glory that is to be revealed” (1 Pet 5:1)? Why would he say that believers are to receive an unfading crown of glory? (1 Pet 5:4) The reason the Apostles write all these things is because God is love, and as love He wants us to participate in His glory, to share in it. And so He generously gives to us His glory — that is what the Christian life is all about, sharing in His suffering, so that He makes us sharers in His glory. I wrote more about this in “The Gospel and the Paradox of Glory.”

3. Predestination is meant to be a comfort. God has chosen us. He is Savior. He thinks, he knows, he acts, he choses and he did it for me (and you).

We can have moral certainty that we are presently in a state of grace. But apart from a special revelation to us personally, we cannot know in this life that we are predestined, though the continuing presence of certain attributes in our life is a sign that, should we continue in them to the end, we are predestined, as Taylor explained in his post at the beginning of this thread.

5. When the gospel is announced to me and you, it is indeed true for me and you. Our sins are forgiven. Our God has known us from the beginning and knows us now. He is our dear and mericful God (yours and mine, and the whole world) and we can go walk with him in humility and joy and love. In the sacraments he says this to us over and over again and it is real as his words declare and as we need his love and mercy daily. When he says: ” this is my body” it is really his body. And when he says “for your”, it is really for you. And when he says and promises: “for the forgiveness of sins” it means your sins are really forgiven. God’s Word is the greatest treasure and it is true.

I mostly agree, though with one qualification. The message of the early Church and in the gospels and the NT is that forgiveness of sins is something that comes to us through baptism. Christ died for our sins, but we receive the benefit of that work on the cross through the sacrament of baptism. This was what Peter said on Pentecost, and it is what we say in the Creed: “one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.” (See our article “The Church Fathers on Baptismal Regeneration.“) But, as for your point that the gospel is really and truly offered to every person, yes, on that point we completely agree."

end of quote

from comment 64 on the same link:

T Ciatoris, you gave a quote from Thoman Aquinas which points to something that I see as missing not only within the Calvinist “limited atonement” soteriology, but also to something that is missing generally within Protestantism about the efffects of the atoning sacrifice of the Cross. I believe that Protestantism typically views the atoning sacrifice of the Cross in terms of satisfaction of divine justice for sins committed by mankind. That is to say, that the sacrifice of the Cross was offered to God to “pay the price for sin”. While this is true in a certain sense, the atoning sacrifice is fundamentally an act of divine love, and as such, it is fundamentally about the opening of the gate of divine mercy to mankind. I would say that the atoning sacrifice is not primarily about the satisfaction of divine justice, it is primarily about the outpouring of divine mercy. Yes, the atoning sacrifice of the Crosss madesatisfaction for the eternal punishment due the sins of mankind, but it also opened to mankind access to the infinite merits of the Cross.

Your quote from Aquinas:

He properly atones for an offense who offers something which the offended one loves equally, or even more than he detested the offense. But by suffering out of love and obedience, Christ gave more to God than was required to compensate for the offense of the whole human race.

Because Christ gave more on the Cross “than was required to compensate for the offense of the whole human race”, not only was divine justice satisfied, an outpouring of grace was unleashed by the atoning sacrifice. This overflowing of grace from the atoning sacrifice can be called the infinite merits of the Cross.

I am making a distinction between the terms satisfaction and merit as these terms are understood in Catholic theology. I believe that you understand that distinction, but for those following reading this who might not, I will try to to illustrate the difference with a thought experiment.

Imagine that I maliciously throw a rock through my neighbor’s garage window. Justice demands that I atone for the damage that I caused; I need to apologise to atone for my disrespect of my neighbor, and, I need to fix the window that I broke. Suppose that I make a sincere apology and I personally fix the window. By doing that, I am making satisfaction for my offense. There is nothing meritorious about my action of fixing the window, because I am only doing what I am required to do to satisfy justice. No one is going to honor me with a Medal for Meritorious Service for repairing what was damaged by my act of vandalism.

Now imagine instead that I see that someone else has maliciously smashed the garage window of my neighbor. I take it upon myself to fix the broken windows out of an act of love. This action has merit, because I am doing something that justice does not require – I am going over and beyond what justice requires. Note that in both cases I am doing exactly the same act – fixing a window. In the first case, fixing the window is an act of justice that is without merit, and in the second case, fixing the window is an act of mercy that is meritorious.

The atoning sacrifice of the Cross does indeed make satisfaction for the eternal punishment due the sins of all mankind, but does much more than that because it is an act of infinite mercy. Man, because he is a creature, cannot do anything that is infinite. All the sins that mankind has ever committed, or ever will commit, cannot add up to a sum that is infinitely evil. But the atoning sacrifice of the Cross is an infinite act of mercy, because what is being offered up on the Cross is the infinite love of God. To see the value of the atoning sacrifice of the Cross strictly in terms of satsisfaction is to miss the point of the atoning sacrifice altogether. The value of atoning sacrifice is much greater than what was required to satisfy the eternal punishment due the sins of all mankind. The true measure of the value of the atoning sacrifice is the infinite merits of the Cross, the outpouring of grace that allows man not only to be reconciled to God, but to partake in the divine life of God.

For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. Romans 5:10

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. Romans 6:3-4

from  http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2010/07/st-augustine-on-law-and-grace/  below:

Overview of the Reformed and Catholic positions on Law and Grace

Before turning to St. Augustine, consider briefly the Reformed and Catholic doctrines concerning the relation of law and grace. According to Reformed theology, justification is by an extra nos (i.e. outside of us) imputation of the obedience of Christ. In other words, God justifies us by counting us as righteous not because of any righteousness infused into us, but by crediting Christ’s righteousness to our account, and crediting Him with our sins. God counts Christ’s suffering and death as punishment for our sins, and God counts Christ’s perfect obedience as our obedience. By this double imputation, nothing we do can bring us into condemnation.¹ That is what it means, in Reformed theology, to be no longer under law, but under grace. The law remains normative and binding on believers as a guide to living correctly, but no one who has been justified by grace through faith can be condemned by the law, nor justified by law-keeping. Believers are not under the law for justification or condemnation; they are under grace. Grace and law are, in that respect, mutually exclusive.

According to Catholic doctrine, justification is by an infusion of sanctifying grace and agape. God does not count-us-as-righteous-even-though-internally-we-are-unrighteous; by infusing grace and agape into our hearts at the moment of regeneration He instantly makes us righteous. God does not count (or impute) our sins against us (Rom 4:8), not by leaving us with a wicked sinful heart and merely overlooking our sins, but by mercifully transforming our heart through the infusion of sanctifying grace and agape such that there is no mortal sin to overlook. The person with agape in his heart is in friendship with God, and thus is righteous before God. When Abraham chose to believe God’s promise (Rom 4:3), this act not only showed that Abraham had a faith working through agape and thus was in friendship with God, but it also deepened that friendship, and so God counted it to him as righteousness. Agape fulfills the law (Rom 10:8-10), because agape is the spirit of the law. Withoutagape, no one is righteous in His sight. But through Christ agape is poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit (Rom 5:5). By this agape in our hearts, we walk in newness of life; this infused grace and agape produces the “obedience of faith” of which St. Paul speaks (Rom 1:5, 16:26). This infused grace and agape is the gift of righteousness (Rom 5:17) by which we have been “freed from sin and made slaves of righteousness” (Rom 6:18,22). By this gift we are made “doers of the Law” (Rom 2:13), such that the requirement of the Law is “fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit,” (Rom 8:4). By this gift we subject ourselves to the law of God (Rom 8:7). By this gift of infused sanctifying grace and agape, our spirit is made alive (Rom 8:10) and the law is written on our hearts (cf. Rom 2:28-29), truly in our hearts (Rom 10:8, 10), as the prophet Jeremiah prophesied long ago concerning the New Covenant (Jeremiah 31:33-34). So according to the Catholic doctrine regarding law and grace, by the infusion of sanctifying grace we receive the gift of agape by which we truly fulfill the law. Here, grace and law are not mutually exclusive; grace orients us to God in divine love such that we fulfill the law, and are truly justified in our hearts.

[and at the conclusion:]
By contrast, for St. Augustine (and the Catholic Church), being under grace does not mean that our justification (or condemnation) does not depend on our law-keeping. Rather, being under grace means having received grace from God into our hearts, and the infused virtues of faith, hope, and agape such that with this divine help we are enabled to keep the law, it being written on our hearts. This is what it means to walk in the newness of the Spirit. For St. Augustine, by the gift of infused grace and agape, the law is fulfilled in us, because agape fulfills the law. By grace we are enabled to love the law, and not be hearers only, but doers of the law. Grace does not take away our obligation to fulfill the law; it does not mean that Christ fulfills the law so that we do not have to do so. Rather, grace enables to us to keep the law, and so truly fulfill the law, not by extra nos imputation nor, like Pelagius, by ourselves without grace, but through grace by God working in us to will and to do what is pleasing in His sight, i.e. living in accordance with His royal law. The Reformed conception of grace is in this respect a weaker conception of grace, because such grace is unable to make us capable of fulfilling the law. But St. Augustine’s (and the Catholic Church’s) doctrine of grace is a more powerful or higher view of grace, because for St. Augustin grace is the power of God in us enabling us to keep the law and so be truly well-pleasing in His sight.

end of quote

and from comment   56 http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/12/justification-catholic-church-and-the-judaizers/

 Clarity on justification is achieved when we think together three things things–the unconditionality of the love of God, the Church as the body of Christ, and salvation as participation in the divine life of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

also from here: http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/07/the-gospel-and-the-meaning-of-life/ :

The message of the gospel is that through the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, the way to the Beatific Vision is open to all, by the grace that is given to all who believe and are baptized. Through Christ, the purpose for which we were created and our final ultimate end (i.e. the Beatific Vision) is opened up to us as a gracious gift.¹²

.........................

Sanctifying grace is participation in the divine nature, and if we have this grace, we have love (i.e. charity) for God as Father, and love Him above all other things. The grace of Christ is that by which we may have confidence on the day of Judgment, because all those who die in a state of grace (i.e. in true friendship with God as Father), receive from Him the reward of eternal Life, i.e. the Beatific Vision of Himself. The Judgment is God’s ultimate verdict concerning all that we have done, and concerning our fundamental choice for or against Him. So there are two respects in which we are judged. First, is our soul is a state of friendship with God? In other words, did we die in a state of grace? That separates the sheep from the goats, those who enter the Beatific Vision, and those who are eternally shut out from the Beatific Vision. There is another respect in which we are judged, and that has to do with degrees of blessedness or misery. According to the Church, the punishment of those in hell is proportioned to the evil of their deeds. Likewise, the reward of those in heaven is proportioned to the good of their deeds. According to the Council of Florence,

from  comment 40 here http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2013/05/pope-francis-atheists-and-the-evangelical-spirit/  Dr Cross

But how does he [i.e. Mathison] determine what is the Church? Being Reformed, he defines ‘Church’ as wherever the gospel is found, because the early Protestants defined the marks of the Church as including “the gospel,” where the gospel was determined by their own private interpretation of Scripture. So he claims that it is in the Church that the gospel is found, but he defines the Church in terms of the gospel. This is what we call a tautology. It is a form of circular reasoning that allows anyone to claim to be the Church and have the gospel. One can read the Bible and formulate one’s own understanding of the gospel, then make this “gospel” a necessary mark of the Church, and then say that it is in the Church that the gospel is found. Because one has defined the Church in terms of the gospel [as arrived at by one's own interpretation of Scripture], telling us that the gospel is found “in the Church” tells us nothing other than “people who share my own interpretation of Scripture about what is the gospel are referred to by me as ‘the Church.’” This kind of circular reasoning allows falsehood to remain hidden.

and and also


From a Catholic perspective, an essential part of the Gospel is the call to incorporation into the Body of Christ. In this way the Church is not merely that which is entrusted with the Gospel, but is part of the Gospel itself. (Jason Stellman touches on this in “Evangelium et Ecclesia.) [from 453 here http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2013/03/jason-stellman-tells-his-conversion-story/

from comment 465 http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2013/03/jason-stellman-tells-his-conversion-story/#comment-58556

 That’s *how* we’re redeemed. It is through baptism and union with Christ’s Body that we are reconciled to God. So from a Catholic perspective a message of redemption that does not include incorporation into the Church Christ founded is deficient. That’s why the notion that “which church with which we should affiliate” should be determined by asking which “church” best serves “the cause of Christ in bringing redemption to a fallen world” is theologically loaded (not neutral), because of what it assumes about what it means to bring redemption.

and 

It is good, all other things being equal, for persons to be told about Christ and His love for us, and that He died for our salvation. It is not good for persons to be in schism, to be deprived of the Eucharist, to “assemble in unauthorized meetings” (St. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, III.3.2), to be taught false doctrine (e.g. to be taught that they can never lose their salvation), not to know who is their rightful bishop, to be deprived of the sacrament of reconciliation, to be deprived of the *fulness* of the truth handed down by the Apostles and developed by the Holy Spirit over two millennia, the communion of the saints, and all the other aids to our salvation available within the Church. So far as I know, people like Billy Graham are doing the best they can with what they know, and bringing a message of Christ to many people. And in that way, they are ‘good guys.” At at the same time, from a Catholic perspective, there is much more to the message of Christ. We’re not saved by words alone (that would be a kind of gnosticism). We’re saved in and through the Church and the sacraments Christ has placed within her.

end

from comment 335 http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/09/does-the-bible-teach-sola-fide/Bryan Cross
 April 17th, 2014 12:01 pm :

"Yesterday, Tim Challies, a Reformed pastor at Grace Fellowship Church in Toronto, Ontario, and co-founder of Cruciform Press, published a post titled “The False Teachers: Pope Francis.” I’ve pasted below from the section that criticizes the Catholic Church, and interspersed my comments. He writes:

For all we can commend about Pope Francis, the fact remains that he, as a son of the Roman Catholic Church and as the leader of the Roman Catholic Church, remains committed to a false gospel that insists upon good works as a necessary condition for justification.

This is a question-begging claim. It presupposes precisely what is in question.

He is the head of a false church that is opposed to the true gospel of salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

Again, this is a question-begging claim. It presupposes what is in question.

Rome remains fully committed to a gospel that cannot and will not save a single soul,

This too is another question-begging claim. Tim is asserting that the gospel according to the Catholic Church is not the true gospel of Christ, but he [Tim] does not show this to be the case.

and officially damns those who believe anything else: “If any one saith, that by faith alone the impious is justified; in such wise as to mean, that nothing else is required to cooperate in order to the obtaining [of] the grace of Justification, and that it is not in any way necessary, that he be prepared and disposed by the movement of his own will; let him be anathema.”

(Sigh.) We’ve addressed this misunderstanding so many times. Here’s just one place, for example: the last paragraph of comment #53 in the Van Drunen thread.

Tim writes:

Roman Catholic doctrine states that justification is infused into a person through the sacrament of baptism.

No, justification is not infused. Righteousness (as agape) is infused; and that infusion is justification. See “Imputation and Paradigms: A Reply to Nicholas Batzig.”

Tim continues:

The Catholic Catechism explains: “Justification has been merited for us by the Passion of Christ. It is granted us through Baptism. It conforms us to the righteousness of God, who justifies us.” However, this justification is not a judicial declaration by God, but the beginning of a lifelong process of conformity. It is insufficient to save a person without the addition of good works.

Actually, that’s not true. According to Catholic doctrine, if a person dies at the moment after he is baptized, without committing any post-baptismal sin, he goes straight to heaven. And if after baptism a person never commits a mortal sin, then he also goes to heaven. He doesn’t have to make himself more righteous, or gain some additional righteousness, in order to get into heaven.

This infusion of righteousness enables a person to do the good works that complete justification.

That’s simply not true. Justification is already complete. But we can, after baptism, cooperate with grace and thereby grow in our justification, as I have explained in “Justification: The Catholic Church and the Judaizers in St. Paul’s Letter to the Galatians.”

Those who have been granted justification eventually merit heaven on the basis of the good works enabled by that justification.

It is not “eventually;” one act of charity, done in a state of grace, merits eternal life, because eternal life is God Himself, as I have explained in “The Doctrine of Merit: Feingold, Calvin, and the Church Fathers.”

Tim writes:

Again, according to the Catechism, “We can therefore hope in the glory of heaven promised by God to those who love him and do his will. In every circumstance, each one of us should hope, with the grace of God, to persevere ‘to the end’ and to obtain the joy of heaven, as God’s eternal reward for the good works accomplished with the grace of Christ.” This is another gospel, a false gospel, that adds human merit as a necessary addition to the work of Christ.

The claim that it is “another gospel” and a “false gospel” simply begs the question, i.e. presupposes precisely what is in question.

Francis also holds that Mary is mediatrix and co-redemptrix with her son Jesus, that Scripture is insufficient and must have the tradition of the church added to it, that even Christians who die may have to endure Purgatory,

Correct. We are all co-redeemers with Mary, inasmuch as we participate in the work of Christ in bringing His redemption to the world. Yes, Scripture alone is insufficient, because Reformed theology rejects “solo scriptura” (except when it doesn’t, as in this case).

Christ is sacrificed anew each time the Mass is celebrated,

Not true. It is irresponsible that any Protestant leader would still criticize this straw man. The mass is a participation in the *one* and only Sacrifice of Christ; not another sacrifice of Christ. (See my discussion with Kevin Failoni, starting in comment #221 of the “Rome, Geneva, and the Incarnation’s Native Soil” thread.

But no false teaching is more scandalous than his denial of justification by grace through faith alone.

This begs the question, by presuming that faith alone (in the sense of the virtue of faith, withoutagape) is sufficient for justification. See the post at the top of this page.

Good deeds done to promote a false gospel are the most despicable deeds of all.

Perhaps, but Tim hasn’t established, but has only repeatedly *asserted* in question-begging fashion, that the Catholic doctrine on justification is a “false gospel.”

Those within the Roman Catholic Church who have experienced salvation (and I sincerely believe there are those who have) have done so despite the church’s official teaching, not through it.

This too is another question-begging claim. It presupposes that the Catholic doctrine is false.

Even while Francis washes the feet of prisoners and kisses the faces of the deformed, he does so out of and toward this false gospel that leads not toward Christ, but directly away from him.

Again, this claim presupposes that the Catholic doctrine is a “false gospel.”

From the time of the Reformation Protestants have insisted that Roman Catholicism is a false church that promotes a false gospel.

Merely “insisting” that x, does not demonstrate the truth of x. Anyone can table-pound.

The Bible insists that we are justified by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone and apart from all human effort

Except the Bible never says that, as I have shown in the post at the top of this page.

“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9).

Of course Catholics fully embrace this verse. What Tim is presuming here, in his interpretation of this verse, is that the faith St. Paul teaches is justifying is faith not informed by agape, but only faith that is followed by agape.

While we can agree with Rome on the necessity of good works, we must insist along with the New Testament writers that such works are the fruit of justification, and have no part in the root of our justification.

The Catholic Church agrees that works do not merit the justification by which we are translated from darkness unto light. No one can merit the grace received in baptism. Persons dead in their sins, and thus not having sanctifying grace, cannot merit at all, and thus cannot merit justification. So in claiming the impossibility of meriting the “root of our justification,” Tim is in agreement with the Catholic Church on this point.

But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works. These things are excellent and profitable for people. (Titus 3:4-8)

The Catholic Church fully affirms and embraces that passage of Scripture, and it is fully compatible with the Catholic doctrine of justification.

The gospel of Rome is not the gospel of the Bible and, therefore, must be resisted and rejected.

Tim here begs the question in the protasis of his conditional, because he has only asserted, not demonstrated or established, that the “gospel of Rome is not the gospel of the Bible.”

So Tim’s whole essay is merely a futile display of question-begging criticisms. I say ‘futile’ because all question-begging criticisms are futile. For this reason his essay does not move us one step closer to reconciliation, because it simply presumes what is in question rather than (a) accurately representing the Catholic position, and (b) seeking to find a way through common ground to show in a non-question-begging way, that there is something wrong with Catholic doctrine. Question-begging exercises are only “for the choir,” a kind of solipsistic sophistry that attempts to portray itself as speaking objectively while hiding from itself the radical paradigm-dependent nature of the stance from which it speaks."

end

also here --the following is the whole comment 336 found  http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/09/does-the-bible-teach-sola-fide/

1. Tim Challies has followed up his previous article “The False Teachers: Pope Francis” (addressed in comment #335 above) with a new one titled “Anti-Catholic or Pro-Gospel?.” There he claims indirectly that six canons from the Sixth Session of the Council of Trent are contrary to Scripture. So let’s take a look at these canons one at a time.
   Tim first quotes Trent 6, Canon 9:

   If anyone says that the sinner is justified by faith alone, meaning that nothing else is required to cooperate in order to obtain the grace of justification, and that it is not in any way necessary that he be prepared and disposed by the action of his own will, let him be anathema. (Canon 9)

   To this he responds:

   I believe that the sinner is justified by faith alone, meaning that nothing else is required and nothing else needs to be cooperated with, to obtain the grace of justification. Rome understands exactly what I believe here and rejects it. (Rom 3:20-28, Eph 2:8)

   Tim implies that there is a contradiction between Trent Session 6 Can. 9 and Scripture, namely (Rom 3:20-28, and Eph 2:8). But here’s why there is no contradiction. Trent Session 6 Canon 9 is condemning the notion that nothing at all is required on the part of the Catechumen to prepare to receive the grace of justification at baptism (on baptismal regeneration see here), that he need not repent of his sins or pray or love God or even resolve to seek baptism. In Romans 3:38, however, St. Paul is not speaking of what is required to prepare to receive the grace of justification in baptism, but rather of the impossibility of justification by works done apart from grace. Likewise, what Trent says about the necessity of preparing to receive the grace of justification in baptism is fully compatible with the truth St. Paul teaches in Ephesians 2:8-9, according to which saving faith is a gift from God and not from ourselves, and that saving faith is not merited by works. The Catholic Church affirms that faith is a gift from God, not from ourselves, and that faith is not merited by works. So both of those passages are fully compatible with what Canon 9 says.
   Then Tim quotes Trent 6, Canon 12:

   If anyone says that justifying faith is nothing else than confidence in divine mercy, which remits sins for Christ’s sake, or that it is this confidence alone that justifies us, let him be anathema. (Canon 12)

   To this Tim responds:

   I believe this! I believe that justifying faith is confidence in God’s divine mercy which remits sin for the sake of Christ and on the basis of the work of Christ. It is this—faith—and nothing else that justifies us. (Rom 3:28, John 1:12)

   Here Tim implies that according to Rom 3:28 and John 1:12, justifying faith is nothing else than confidence in divine mercy. Importantly there are two differences between Tim’s conception of what justifying faith is, and what the Catholic Church teaches justifying faith is. The first difference is in the conception of faith itself. For Tim, faith is merely confidence in divine mercy. But according to the Catholic Church, faith is not only “a personal adherence of man to God,” but also, at the same time and inseparably, it is a free assent to the whole truth that God has revealed.” (CCC 150) For this reason, one point of Canon 12 is to condemn the notion that justifying faith does not include assenting to the whole truth that God has revealed (e.g. assenting to the Creed), but is only trust in His mercy. The second difference between Tim’s conception of what justifying faith is, and what the Catholic Church teaches concerning justifying faith is that for Tim, justifying faith is not informed by agape, whereas according to the Catholic Church, faith that is not informed by agape is dead faith, and is therefore not justifying faith.
   So now the question is whether the two passages Tim cites support his conception of faith over that of the Catholic Church. When we turn to Romans 3:28, we find that it does not decide this question, i.e. which conception of faith (Tim’s or the Catholic Church’s) is the correct one. Romans 3:28 reads, “For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law.” That’s fully compatible with the Catholic conception of faith. So this verse does not support Tim’s position over against the Catholic teaching concerning what justifying faith is. Nor does John 1:12 decide the question. John 1:12 reads, “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name.” This verse does not say whether believing in His Name merely means confidence in His mercy, or whether it includes assenting to the whole truth God has revealed, and is informed byagape. The verse simply does not answer the question; that’s not its purpose. So both of these verses to which Tim appeals here do not support Tim’s position over against the Catholic teaching concerning what justifying faith is. They leave the question unanswered. At the very least, nothing in these verses entails a contradiction with what Canon 12 says.
   Next Tim quotes Trent 6, Canon 14:

   If anyone says that man is absolved from his sins and justified because he firmly believes that he is absolved and justified, or that no one is truly justified except him who believes himself justified, and that by this faith alone absolution and justification are effected, let him be anathema. (Canon 14)

   To this he responds:

   This may require some nuance, because I do not believe that I am absolved from sin because I believe I am absolved from sin; however, I do hold, as the Council says here, that faith in Christ alone does absolve sin and justify sinners. (Rom 5:1)

   The reason for Canon 14 is very similar to the reason for Canon 12. The Council was condemning (a) a conception of faith that did not include assent to the whole truth revealed by God and its being made alive by agape, (b) a conception of faith that made one’s own justificatory status the object of faith, (c) a conception of justification according to which a belief about one’s own justificatory status is the necessary and sufficient means by which justification is effected. When Tim replies by saying, “I do hold, as the Council says here, that faith in Christ alone does absolve sin and justify sinners,” he misunderstands this particular canon, because in this canon the conception of faith being condemned is the sort that has oneself as its object, i.e. one’s own justificatory status is the object of belief. This canon is not talking about “faith in Christ.” In support of his position Tim appeals to Romans 5:1: “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Here again, however, this verse does not specify whether faith is what the Catholic Church says faith is, or whether it is faith that has one’s own justificatory status as its object. The verse simply doesn’t answer that question, because the purpose of the verse is not to define what faith is. So this verse does not support what this canon condemns. And given what Tim says in response to this canon, that is, given that he misinterprets it as referring to “faith in Christ,” he may actually agree with this canon.
   Next Tim quotes Trent 6, Canon 24:

   If anyone says that the justice received is not preserved and also not increased before God through good works, but that those works are merely the fruits and signs of justification obtained, but not the cause of its increase, let him be anathema. (Canon 24)

   To he replies:

   I believe that good works—works that bring glory to God—are the fruit and proof of justification. I deny that they are in any way the cause of justification’s increase and preservation. (Gal 3:1-3, Gal 5:1-3)

   Tim appeals to Galatians 3:1-3 and 5:1-3 as support for his denial that good works done in a state of grace both preserve and increase justification. So let’s look at these passages. Galatians 3:1-3 reads as follows:

   You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified? This is the only thing I want to find out from you: did you receive the Spirit by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? (Gal 3:1-3)

   And Galatians 5:1-3 reads as follows:

   It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery. Behold I, Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no benefit to you. And I testify again to every man who receives circumcision, that he is under obligation to keep the whole Law. (Gal 5:1-3)

   These verses are not about good works done out of agape in a state of grace, but about a return to the Old Covenant Law. In his letter to the Galatians, St. Paul was not condemning or even referring to growth in justification through good works done in a state of grace; he was condemning a return to the Old Covenant by Christians, because that was a rejection of the New Covenant and implicitly therefore a rejection of Jesus as the Messiah who established the New Covenant in which the requirement of those ceremonial laws is done away. St. Paul’s condemnation of the teaching of the Judaizers was not for believing that works done in agape (in accordance with the moral law under the New Covenant) increase our justification, but for believing that the keeping of the ceremonial law, and thus returning to the Old Covenant and the whole Jewish law is necessary for justification.
   The Judaizers were rejecting the New Covenant, in which we are justified by sanctifying grace and [living] faith in Christ, received through the sacrament of baptism instituted by Christ. But the Catholic Church affirms the New Covenant. In fact the Catholic Church is the New Israel, the Israel of the New Covenant. (cf. Gal 6:16) The Catholic Church teaches that we are justified by [living] faith in Christ, a faith that we receive as a gift from God, along with sanctifying grace, in the sacrament of baptism instituted by Christ. Tim’s assumption that St. Paul’s condemnation of the Judaizers’ doctrine applies to Catholic doctrine overlooks the role of the Covenants in the Galatian account. Tim seemingly thinks that St. Paul’s concern in his letter to the Galatians is simply excluding works of any sort from justification. It is true that St. Paul recognizes that works cannot justify. But St. Paul’s primary concern for the Galatian believers is that they remain within the New Covenant, and thus remain united to Christ. By adding the requirement of the ceremonial law they were returning to the Old Covenant, and thus nullifying the New Covenant and the sacrifice of Christ, the long-awaited Messiah and Savior. (cf. Gal 5:1ff) The Catholic Church rejects the permissibility of rejecting one’s baptism and returning to the Old Covenant for justification or salvation. From the Catholic point of view, adding the requirements of the ceremonial law would be nothing less than apostasy from the New Covenant established by the blood of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God. So in this respect, the Catholic Church does not fall under St. Paul’s condemnation of the doctrine of the Judaizers. And likewise for this reason these verses do not support Tim’s position, or in any way oppose Canon 24.
   Then Tim quotes Trent 6, Canon 30:

   If anyone says that after the reception of the grace of justification the guilt is so remitted and the debt of eternal punishment so blotted out to every repentant sinner, that no debt of temporal punishment remains to be discharged either in this world or in purgatory before the gates of heaven can be opened, let him be anathema. (Canon 30)

   In response he writes:

   I believe this precious truth and will fight to the death for it! I believe that at the moment of justification the sinner’s guilt and punishment are removed to such an extent that no debt remains to be discharged in this world or in purgatory before he can enter into heaven. (Rom 5:1, Col 2:13-14)

   This canon is condemning the notion that sinning after having been justified does not produce a debt of temporal punishment. I have explained the basis for the distinction between the eternal debt of punishment and the temporal debt of punishment in “St. Thomas Aquinas on Penance.” In referencing Rom 5:1 and Col 2:13-14 Tim is implying that Rom 5:1 and Col 2:13-14 support his position and oppose the Catholic teaching. Rom 5:1 again reads,

   Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

   This verse is fully compatible with the Catholic position, because the debt of temporal punishment does not imply or entail not being at peace with God. The debt of temporal punishment is due to ‘horizontal’ (i.e. creature-to-creature) acts of injustice. We can be at peace with God while still owing a debt to fellow creatures. Hence this verse is fully compatible with the Catholic teaching. Colossians 2:13-14 reads:

   When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.

   In these two verses the ‘debt’ in question is the debt of eternal punishment. St. Paul is not saying that the debt includes all debts Christians could owe to their fellow man. Otherwise Christians would never have to pay back loans to fellow humans, because the debt would already have been paid by Christ on the Cross. For this same reason, this verse is not referring to the debt of temporal punishment, and therefore does not oppose or contradict the Catholic teaching regarding the possibility of accruing a debt of temporal punishment after justification.
   What is the fundamental reason underlying the disagreement between Tim and the Catholic regarding the interpretation of the verses to which he has appealed in criticism of these five canons? I have laid that out in “The Tradition and the Lexicon.”
   Finally Tim quotes Trent 6, Canon 33:

   If anyone says that the Catholic doctrine of justification as set forth by the holy council in the present decree, derogates in some respect from the glory of God or the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ, and does not rather illustrate the truth of our faith and no less the glory of God and of Christ Jesus, let him be anathema. (Canon 33)

   To that he responds:

   This is the heart of the issue, isn’t it? The Roman Catholic doctrine of justification, as laid out by the Council of Trent, and as systematized in the canons, does that very thing—it diminishes the glory of God and the merits of Jesus Christ. It adds to Christ’s work. To add anything to Christ’s work is to destroy it altogether.

   Tim’s concern is that the doctrine that man participates in his salvation takes some glory away from God, and gives it to man. This concern is based on three implicit philosophical assumptions:
   (1) that God gets the most glory when God alone receives glory,
   (2) that glory is the sort of thing that is lost by the giver when the giver gives it to others,
   and
   (3), that the degree of glory is determined entirely by the degree of causality exercised, such that the greater the causality exercised, the greater the glory.
   But each of these three assumptions is not true. If (2) and (3) were true, then God would lose glory by creating creatures and giving them actual causal powers, since St. Paul tells us that creatures already have glory simply by the kind of nature that they have. (1 Cor 15:41) Moreover, if each of these three assumptions were true, then if God wished to maximize His glory, He would have either to avoid creating anything at all, or He would have to give only the illusion of causal powers to creatures, reserving all causality to Himself. This position is called occasionalism, and I have discussed itelsewhere.
   Let’s consider what St. Thomas Aquinas says about this. Regarding our genuine participation in God’s providential governance of the world, St. Thomas argues that it is more perfect for God to give causality to creatures than to make creatures but withhold causality from them. He writes:

   [T]here are certain intermediaries of God’s providence; for He governs things inferior by superior, not on account of any defect in His power, but by reason of the abundance of His goodness; so that the dignity of causality is imparted even to creatures [ut dignitatem causalitatis etiam creaturis communicet].” (ST I Q.22 a.3)

   If God governed alone, things would be deprived of the perfection of causality [subtraheretur perfectio causalis a rebus]. (ST I Q.103 a.6 ad.2)

   Some have understood God to work in every agent in such a way that no created power has any effect in things, but that God alone is the ultimate cause of everything wrought; for instance, that it is not fire that gives heat, but God in the fire, and so forth. But this is impossible. First, because the order of cause and effect would be taken away from created things: and this would imply lack of power in the Creator: for it is due to the power of the cause, that it bestows active power on its effect. Secondly, because the active powers which are seen to exist in things, would be bestowed on things to no purpose, if these wrought nothing through them. Indeed, all things created would seem, in a way, to be purposeless, if they lacked an operation proper to them; since the purpose of everything is its operation. … We must therefore understand that God works in things in such a manner that things have their proper operation. (ST I Q.105 a.5)

   It takes a greater power to make a creature with actual causal powers than a virtual reality in which God is the only causal agent. Therefore, creating creatures that have actual causal powers gives God more glory than creating creatures that have no causal powers. Since natural causal activity on the part of creatures does not detract from God’s glory but further reveals His great power and thus enhances his glory, so also the causal activity of rational creatures in cooperation with grace does not detract from God’s glory, but likewise enhances it. Regarding our genuine participation in God’s salvific work, St. Thomas writes:

   In this way God is helped by us; inasmuch as we execute His orders, according to 1 Corinthians 3:9: “We are God’s co-adjutors.” Nor is this on account of any defect in the power of God, but because He employs intermediary causes, in order that the beauty of order may be preserved in the universe; and also that He may communicate to creatures the dignity of causality [ut etiam creaturis dignitatem causalitatis communicet]. (ST I Q.23 a.8 ad.2)

   Notice that St. Thomas quotes St. Paul’s statement that [the Apostles] are God’s “co-adjutors.” In the Greek this reads: θεοῦ γάρ ἐσμεν συνεργοί. “For we are God’s co-workers.” Of course St. Paul is speaking about the work of preaching the gospel and building up the Church through prayer and teaching and service. But, if man may be a co-worker with God in the salvation of others, then it would be ad hoc to claim that man may not in principle be a co-worker in his own salvation. St. Paul implies as much when he states explicitly to the Philippians that they should “work out [their] salvation with fear and trembling” [μετὰ φόβου καὶ τρόμου τὴν ἑαυτῶν σωτηρίαν κατεργάζεσθε]. (Phil 2:12) St. Thomas continues:

   Now it is a greater perfection for a thing to be good in itself and also the cause of goodness in others, than only to be good in itself. Therefore God so governs things that He makes some of them to be causes of others in government; as a master, who not only imparts knowledge to his pupils, but gives also the faculty of teaching others. (ST I Q.103 a.6)

   All of this shows that it what is underlying Tim’s opposition to Canon 33 is a philosophical assumption that God receives more glory when God does it all Himself, and does not allow us to participate. But that’s not a safe assumption, and as St. Thomas shows, a good argument can be made for its opposite, namely, that God receives more glory when He does not do it all Himself, but instead allows His creatures to participate in His work, both on the level of nature, and on the level of grace.
   Finally Tim writes:

   As I read the canons of the Council of Trent I see a systematic explanation and thorough denial of justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. I see that Rome understands what I believe and declares it anathema. Of course it is her right to do this, but let’s not miss some important implications: Whatever else Rome teaches, she will not teach that we are justified solely by grace through faith in Christ Jesus. If she teaches a gospel that adds to the work of Christ, she teaches a false gospel, doesn’t she? And if Francis is the head of the organization that states this as official doctrine, if he is her chief defender and propagator, I must judge him a false teacher. What else could I do?

   The Catholic Church clearly does not teach what Tim believes, i.e. that we are justified by faith [as mere confidence in divine mercy, without assent in the whole revelation of God, and without agape] alone. Even the phrase faith “in Christ alone” presupposes a trust conception of faith, and does not necessarily include the “free assent to the whole truth that God has revealed,” e.g. does not include affirming the Creed. Otherwise “in Christ alone” would entail a denial of the Trinity. So even with phrases like “in Christ alone,” the disagreement is not a simple yes or no (affirmation or denial), but is rather a difference in paradigm, because the respective concepts of what justifying faith is are different. Even Tim’s claim that the Catholic Church teaches a gospel that “adds to the work of Christ” presupposes a different paradigm regarding the nature of Christ’s work. In the Catholic paradigm Christ’s work includes us, and includes our participation in it. We cannot add to it in the sense of doing something not included in it; that would be a work done apart from grace, and that sort of notion would be Pelagianism. But we can ‘add’ to it in the sense of doing something in it, through it. Christ is not the only agent of His salvation; by His work He makes us co-workers with Him, such that in Him and through Him who lives within us, we are given the gift of participating in and cooperating with His salvific work. That’s not a false gospel; that’s just the gospel. Only when one looks at it through a zero-sum, non-participatory paradigm lens does it appear to be going beyond Christ, and thus appear Pelagian. But in the Catholic participatory paradigm, real union with Christ just is the gospel.

LEAVE CO

from a facebook account:Cursillo Acadiana

I was a Catholic once....

"I was a Catholic once,” said the lady a few yards from me in the parking lot. “Now I’m a Christian and you can be one as well.” She preceded to hand a tract to a gentleman standing next to the opened trunk of his car. I couldn’t help it.

“Excuse me,” I said to the lady “but could I too have a tract?” The lady's face beamed. “Are you saved?,” she asked. “Of course I am; I’m a believing Catholic,” I retorted. She looked at me as if I had bad breath or something.

She continued, “I was just telling this gentleman that I too was a Catholic - a Catholic for thirty-some years in fact. Now I've found Christ and I’m trying to tell everyone I know about salvation through Christ.”

“Wow, that’s really something! May I ask why you left the Church?” I could tell that, by asking this question, my new acquaintance was getting excited. After all, she had probably been snubbed by dozens of people and now she has someone that she can “witness” to Christ. I didn’t mind much either, but I tried not to show it.

"You see,” she said, “I was born Catholic. I attended Mass every week, received the Sacraments and graduated from a Catholic school. Not once did I ever hear the gospel proclaimed. Not once! It was after the birth of my first child that a good friend of mine shared ‘the gospel’ with me and I accepted Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior and became a Christian. Now I belong to a ‘Bible-believing’ church and I’m sharing the gospel with whomever will listen.”

This shocked me. “You mean you belonged to the Catholic Church for over forty years and you never heard the gospel?,” I said. She was getting more excited. “Yes, I never once heard the gospel of salvation preached or taught or even mentioned in the Church. If you don’t preach the gospel, excuse my bluntness, but you're simply not Christian.” I scratched my head and said, “that’s strange. I’ve been a Catholic all my life and I bet I hear the gospel ever week at Church.” Her smile quickly faded into a look of curiosity. “Maybe, I’m missing something,” I continued. “Tell me what you mean by ‘the gospel?’”

The lady reached back into her purse to pull out a little tract and said, “This tracts explains the simple gospel of salvation. It can be broken down into four easy steps.
“First, we acknowledge that we are all sinners in need of God’s forgiveness.

Secondly, we recognize that only God can save us.

The third step is that Jesus Christ died on the Cross for our sins and to bring us to God.

And the fourth and final step is that each individual accepts Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior to be saved.”

I thought for a couple of seconds and said, “If I could demonstrate to you that Catholics hear “the gospel” every Sunday, would you agree to take a closer look at the Catholic Church?” Now, she knew she had me over a barrel. “Prove it,” she said. I excused myself for a second and ran to my car to grab a Missal.

“Since you have attended Mass nearly all your life, you probably remember these prayers.” I flipped open to the beginning prayers of the Mass and proceeded to show her how Catholics hear, pray and live the gospel message every Sunday.

The first step in my new found friend’s tract stated that we are all sinners in need of God’s forgiveness. After the Greeting, the Mass continues to what is known as the Penitential Rite. I read loud the text to her while she followed reading silently.

“I confess to almighty God, and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have sinned through my own fault. In my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done, and in what I have failed to do.”

I mentioned that it is here in this section that each Catholic states publicly that he or she is individually a sinner - not merely in a general sense - but specifically in thoughts, words and deeds. You can’t get much more complete than that. I continued reading, “and I ask Blessed Mary, ever virgin, all the angels and saints, and to you, my brothers and sisters, to pray for me to the Lord our God.”

The priest reaffirms this confession of sin by praying:

“May almighty God have mercy on us, forgive us our sins, and bring us to everlasting life.”

And the whole congregation says “Amen,” that is, “I believe.” The priest continues.

“Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy,”
and finishes by saying:

"Lord show us your mercy and love. And grant us your salvation.”

I looked at her and said, “You see, we Catholics start every Mass with a public declaration of our own personal sinfulness and look to God for forgiveness.”

She responded, “But Catholics don’t believe that God alone can save them. They believe Mary and the saints will save them.” I shook my head in disagreement. “No, we don’t. Remember what we had just read in the Mass. Catholic ask Mary, the angels, the saints and the whole congregation to pray to God for mercy on their behalf - just like I would ask you to pray for me to God. Does that mean that I look to you to ‘save’ me? No, of course I don’t believe that. I’m just asking for your help. Besides the ‘Gloria’ of the Mass proves that Catholics look to God alone to save us.”

I began reading the Missal emphasizing certain words to prove my point:

“Glory to God in the highest, and peace to his people on earth. Lord God, heavenly King, almighty God and Father, we worship you, we give you thanks, we praise you for your glory. Lord Jesus Christ, only Son of the Father, Lord God, Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world, have mercy on us, you are seated at the right hand of the Father, receive our prayer. For you alone are the Holy One, you alone are the Lord, you alone are the Most High, Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit, in the glory of God the Father."

Likewise, the doxology spoken just prior to communion reads,
“Through him, with him, in him; in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is your, almighty Father, for ever and ever.”

As I looked up, I could see the lady intently reading the page. She couldn’t believe that she had prayed these prayers for years and never noticed what it was saying. Yet, there it was in black and white. I continued with the third step - the acknowledgment that Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins and to bring us to God.

The Profession of Faith reads,
“For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit he was born of the Virgin Mary, and became man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate.”

In the Eucharistic Prayer 1, the priest prays:

“Remember [Lord] all of us gather here before you. You know how firmly we believe in you and dedicate ourselves to you. . . We pray to you, our living and true God, for our well-being and redemption . . . Grant us your peace in this life, save us from final damnation, and count us among those you have chosen.”
The prayer ends with an appeal to God for salvation through Jesus Christ:

“May, these and all who sleep in Christ, find in your presence light, happiness and peace. For ourselves, too, we ask some share in the fellowship of your apostles and martyrs . . . Though we are sinners, we trust in your mercy and love. Do not consider what we truly deserve, but grant us your forgiveness. Through Christ our Lord you give us all these gifts. You fill them with life and goodness, you bless them and make them holy.”

Similarly the second Eucharistic Prayer proclaims:

“Dying you [Jesus] destroyed our death, rising you restored our life. Lord Jesus, come in glory. . . Have mercy on us all; make us worthy to share eternal life with Mary, the virgin Mother of God, with the apostles and with all the saints who have done your will throughout the ages.”

Likewise, Eucharistic Prayer 3 reads:

“All life, all holiness comes from you through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, by the working of the Holy Spirit . . .

Father, calling to mind the death your Son endured for our salvation, his glorious resurrection and ascension into heaven, and ready to greet him when he comes again, we offer you in thanksgiving this holy and living sacrifice. Look with favour on our your Church’s offering, and see the Victim [Christ] whose death has reconciled us to yourself . . .

May he make us an everlasting gift for you and enable us to share in the inheritance of your saints . . . “

Lastly, the fourth Eucharistic Prayer reads:

“Father, you so loved the world that in the fullness of time you sent your only Son to be our Savior . . .
In fulfillment of your will he gave himself up to death; but by rising from the dead, he destroyed death and restored life.”

In this prayer, the congregation proclaims the mystery of faith:

“Lord, by your cross and resurrection, you have set us free. You are the Savior of the world.”
“You see, every week Catholics proclaim that Jesus died for them,” I said to the lady who was now searching for something to say. After a brief moment of silence, she shot a response back at me.

“What about accepting Jesus Christ and their personal Lord and Savior?” She retorted. “They may be saying all this stuff, but they don’t make a personal act of acceptance.” What she didn’t know was that I deliberately didn’t mention the last “step” of her “gospel.”

I explained that if Catholics don’t believe what they are praying, they ought not to be publicly proclaiming it. Since we can’t read the dispositions of other people’s hearts, we ought not to judge whether they truly believe what they are saying.

Next, I pointed out the last step - where Catholics are accepting Jesus into their hearts. Right before communion the priest holds up the host (which is now the body, blood, soul and divinity of Our Lord under the appearances of bread and wine) and prays:

“This is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Happy are those who are called to his supper.”

And the congregation responds,
“Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed.”

I looked straight into the lady’s eyes and said, “It is here that all those who are prepared to receive Jesus Christ walk up to the front of the church but they don’t just believing in Christ or merely asking Jesus into their hearts.”

“They don’t?” She asked. “No,” I answered, “they receive that same Christ who died on the cross on Calvary into their mouth and into their stomachs - body, blood, soul and divinity - and become one with him in an unspeakable way. Now that's accepting Christ!”

She didn’t have a response. I’m not sure that she had ever really thought about the Mass and Christ’s real presence in the Eucharist because she appeared to be both surprised and intrigued.

I gave her my phone number and invited her to a study group I was heading in the neighborhood which examined the Biblical foundation for Catholic doctrine.

As we departed, I couldn’t help but wonder how many other people, like my new friend, left the Church thinking that it had nothing to say about salvation. Yet the richness of the liturgy of the Mass and even more so Christ’s real substantial presence in the Eucharist so outshines our separated brethren’s “low church” prayer services that there is no comparison!

Indeed, the mystery of the Mass goes far beyond the simple “sinner’s prayer.”

What I wanted to demonstrate is that all the elements of what Protestants consider the “essentials” of human salvation are presented, in Technicolor, in the liturgy of the Mass and that to deny the charge that the Church is somehow neglecting to present “the gospel".