Justification – the Necessity of Works

A common, and unfair, accusation levelled against us Catholics is that we believe that we are justified by works. The reason that this accusation is made is because we do not adhere to Martin Luther’s doctrine of Sola Fide i.e. that justification is by faith alone and without any good works at all.   

In my days as a non-Catholic Christian, I firmly held to the Protestant doctrine of Sola Fide. It was a teaching that I really didn’t question because, as far as I knew, it was the most basic and fundamental principle of Christianity. After all, wasn’t this the one thing that the Protestant Reformers rescued from the wicked “Papists” who for so long had led people to believe that we are saved by our works?

On one level, I missed the logical fact that to believe is itself a work. But more importantly, I failed to realise that the Catholic Church, as the pillar and foundation of truth, was actually right on the teaching of justification all along. Thanks be to God, He was gracious enough to allow me to see that Sola Fide is unscriptural and that the teaching of the Protestant Reformers was not in line with what the Church has taught since the time of the Apostles.

Just because we Catholics do not believe we are saved by faith alone, Protestants tend to think that this must mean that we believe we are saved by works. This is unfair reasoning at best, and really is not what the Catholic Church teaches. Rather, the Church teaches that we are in fact saved by faith, but that faith is not alone i.e. saving faith is necessarily and always accompanied by good works.

One of the “proof-texts” used by Protestants to back up their doctrine of Sola Fide is Eph 2:8-9 where St. Paul says:

“...by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God – not the result of works, so that no one may boast.”

But this verse should not be read in isolation, because St. James tells us quite emphatically:

“So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead...You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.” Jms 2:17,24

A reading of the entire passage in James 2 will reveal that in St. James’ argument, a “dead faith” is a very real faith (even the devils believe and tremble – v19); but it is a dead faith nonetheless. Following St. James’ thought, if justification is by faith alone (as Protestants suggest); then the devil himself would be justified by his faith. On the flip-side of this “dead faith” is a faith which MUST be accompanied by good works if it is to be living and life-giving.

Origen, writing early in the third century affirmed this when he said:

“Whoever dies in his sins, even if he professes to believe in Christ, does not truly believe in Him; and even if that which exists without works be called faith, such faith is dead in itself, as we read in the Epistle bearing the name of James.” – Commentaries on John

So, how do we reconcile what St. James says about works and faith with what St. Paul’s teaching? One way of looking at the above verses is to perceive that St. James teaches us that we are not saved by faith alone, whilst St. Paul teaches us that we are not saved by works alone. Rather, we need to see that neither faith nor works stand alone. They stand together hand-in-hand and both are gifts from God. So, even though we are saved by faith AND works, it ultimately comes back to the fact that we are saved by God’s grace and God’s grace ALONE.

This is also echoed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church:  

“Believing in Jesus Christ and in the One who sent him for our salvation is necessary for obtaining that salvation...without faith no one has ever attained justification, nor will anyone obtain eternal life but he who endures to the end. Faith is an entirely free gift that God makes to man...” CCC #161-162

“Our justification comes from the grace of God...” CCC # 1996

Interestingly, when one examines the Gospels, you will find that our Lord placed more emphasis on good works than He did on faith. His parable of the wedding banquet (Matt 22:1-14) bears this out when He speaks of the person without the wedding robe being case into outer darkness (v 12-13). Comparing this passage with St. John’s Revelation, we find that the fine linen garment “is the righteous deeds of the saints” (Rev 19:8).

So if we desire to enter into the presence of God when our earthly sojourn is complete, let us never cease in our pursuit of holiness and good works in faith, without which we can never see God (Heb 12:14). And let us do so in faith, because without faith, it is impossible for our good works to please God (Heb 11:6).

The Beatitudes and the Virgin Mary

Earlier this week, I was praying the Rosary and meditating on the Luminous Mysteries. As part of the Third Luminous Mystery (i.e. the proclamation of the kingdom), I usually meditate on the Beatitudes. As I was working my way through the Hail Mary, especially the words which echo those of St. Elisabeth “Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the Fruit of thy Womb”, the connection with the Beatitudes (Matt 5:3-11) dawned on me.

Blessed is the Fruit of thy Womb – Our Lord Jesus is the ultimate fulfilment of the Beatitudes because He is the Source of all blessing, the One from Whom all blessings flow. In this way, the Beatitudes find their fullest meaning in the Lord Jesus Christ.

But it was not only the Fruit of the Womb that St. Elisabeth said was blessed. In order to grow, a fruit requires a tree...and so in order to become a man, God needed Mary. Which is why St. Elisabeth's first beatitude was directed towards Mary – “Blessed art thou among women...”.

If the tree is blessed, so too is the fruit...and vice versa. In this way, if the Fruit of the Womb is blessed, then so too is Mary, from whose womb our Lord was made Incarnate. But Mary’s blessedness is of an infinite kind because she bore the Infinite and Divine Son of God. So Mary is not just blessed...she is MOST blessed because she is God’s greatest creation – the New Eve, spared from original sin so that she could give birth to the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

Since our Lord Jesus came to us in the Incarnation through the Virgin Mary; so too His blessings flow to us through her. And just as the Incarnation was all from God’s grace, we only obtain the blessings that Christ spoke of in the Beatitudes only by God’s grace. All we need to do is humbly ask. And the surest way of obtaining them is by asking through Our Lady because it is also through her that God pours out His grace upon us. Having recourse to Our Lady, and following her example, she will always, always, ALWAYS lead us to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Blessed art thou Mary, poor in spirit; teach us to be poor in spirit so that we might obtain the kingdom of heaven;

Blessed art thou Mary, you who mourned and suffered with our Saviour; comfort us in our affliction;

Blessed art thou Mary, most meek of all God’s creatures and Queen of Heaven and Earth; teach us to be meek that we too can share in this inheritance;

Blessed art thou Mary, most righteous; grant us a deep hungering and thirsting for righteousness so that we might be filled from above;

Blessed art thou Mary, most merciful; pray for us that we might obtain God’s mercy;

Blessed art thou Mary, most pure in heart; intercede for us before the face of God that we might grow in purity;

Blessed art thou Mary, lover of peace and handmaid of the Lord; teach us to love one another that we may be worthy to be called thy children and the children of our God;

Blessed art thou Mary, persecuted for the sake of righteousness; help us to seek first God’s kingdom without fear of the persecution that will come our way;

Blessed art thou Mary; reviled and falsely accused on Our Lord’s account; teach us to rejoice in our persecutions that we might be made worthy of the reward of heaven together with thee and all of God’s Saints.

"The Bible Needs the Church" - Daughter of Glory

I recently came across this new blog which I think will be an interesting one to follow.

http://gloryschild.blogspot.com/2011/07/bible-needs-church.html

 The link above is particularly interesting as “Daugher of Glory” puts forward a very simple yet profound case for why the Bible needs the Catholic Church.

Have a read of her blog – it really is interesting. Her other posts are also VERY good.

God bless

Justin

Conformed to the Image of Christ

In the second reading for today’s Liturgy of the Word (17^th Sunday in Ordinary Time), St. Paul tells us that God has predestined us to be conformed to the image of His Son, and that the end result of His work in us is a sharing of His glory (Rom 8:28-30).

In order to be conformed to the image of Christ, we need to be filled with Christ. That is why God uses the Word and Sacraments as the primary means of transforming us. The Scriptures change us because Jesus Christ, the Word of God, is present in them and it is He who changes us. The same is true of the Sacraments. God changes the ordinary everyday things in our lives so that they might become the means by which He pours His grace into our lives. What makes the Sacraments effectual is not some magical power imbued in them; but it is the Word of God that makes them effectual. It is Christ who is present in the Sacraments who changes us by the Sacraments.

As Catholics we affirm that the greatest Sacrament – the Sacrament of Sacraments – is the Eucharist because it is the very Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ.  What starts out as simple bread and wine is transformed by the Word of God when the priest, acting in persona Christi, utters the words of Christ “This is my Body” and “This is my Blood”.

Herein is the wonder of the Eucharistic celebration – when we bring our offerings of bread of wine in thanksgiving to God, we are offering ourselves to Him; and as we offer ourselves, He receives and unites it to the offering of the Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross when our gifts are transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ. After this transformation, the Body and Blood is then given back to us to receive so that we can be changed by Christ as He fills us with Himself in the Sacrament.
St. Bonaventure reminds us of this when he says:

“With the external mouth we receive Him sacramentally, with the inward mouth we receive Him spiritually”.

In other words, although what we receive is physical, the change that takes place in us transcends the physical, and permeates to the spiritual. St. Jerome, referring to St. Elisabeth’s words “Blessed is the Fruit of thy womb”, says that this was the whole reason that God the Son had to take on a human form when he says that “the Flower of Mary became fruit that we might eat of it”.

There is an old saying: “You are what you eat”. So, when we worthily eat and drink of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist, it is not an empty ritual or symbolic exercise. When we share in the Eucharist, God is using the Blessed Sacrament to conform us to the image of Christ.

If we realise this, the only reasonable response is to fall on our knees in thanksgiving to God for the great and undeserved gift that He gives to us in the Blessed Sacrament. May God grant that we would grow in our realisation that what we receive in Holy Communion is nothing less than the God the Son, and that as we grow in this realisation may we more freely to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Him in a deeper pursuit of His holiness.

"Can Protestants Rely Upon the Council of Jamnia for their Bible"

An interesting blog that touches on some of the issues regarding the Protestant Canon (which removes some of the books from the Old Testament Canon that Christians had always accepted up until the time of the Protestant Reformation).

http://catholicdefense.blogspot.com/2011/07/can-protestants-rely-upon-council-of.html

The Marks of the Church

A friend recently recommended an article by Ligonier Ministries (an organisation which in its own words is “the teaching fellowship of RC Sproul”) which speaks about “The Marks of the Church”.

In the article, the author comments that the Catholic Church teaches that THE mark of the church is the bishop – and that this bishop must be in a line of succession with the Apostles and submit to the Pope. This statement contains an element of truth, but not the whole truth i.e. a bishop in a line of succession and in communion with the Successor of St. Peter is a mark of the true church, but it is not THE sole mark. There are other marks as well, as I hope to demonstrate below.



The author goes on to say that, contrary to his assumption of the Catholic position, the marks of a true church are the Word of God and the Sacraments; which he tries to back up using 1 Cor 11:17-34. Now, it is true that the Word of God and the Sacraments are necessarily present in the Church of Christ; however, nowhere in this passage does St. Paul make the case (either explicitly or by inference) that  these are the marks by which the True Church is known as such.

In addition, the author’s case tends to fall a bit flat when pushed a bit – because no two Protestant denominations are able to agree on these two “marks”. They cannot agree on the Word of God because each Protestant denomination interprets the Scriptures differently according to their own self-assumed authority. And they cannot agree on the nature and effect of the Sacraments (that’s if they’re even willing to call them “Sacraments” in the first place); and yet he would affirm that there are denominations other that his own that he would gladly call “true churches”. Yet, how could they be if they don’t believe the same about the Word of God, and hold different theology regarding the Sacraments?

I sometimes wonder why the Protestant Reformers felt such a need to make such a strong point on this assumption of the “marks” of the Church when the Scriptures don’t specifically spell them out. My suspicion is that it is because they were up against the insurmountable claim of the Catholic Church – a claim rooted and grounded historically with evidence tracing all the way back to the Apostles. And, within this historic Christianity, the Church had already established what the “marks of the Church” were in the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed (AD 381) in which the Church throughout the ages affirms the belief that “We believe in One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church”. In other words, the “marks of the Church” are that:

a)    the Church is One;

b)    the Church is Holy;

c)    the Church is Catholic; and

d)    the Church is Apostolic.

The Catholic Church is the only Church that has been, is, and always will be, able to stand up to this test. Whereas, with at least on the points of unity, catholicity, and apostolicity, the Protestant Reformers were not able to give full assent and remain honest. The only way that they were able to continue to “affirm” the marks contained in the Creed was through a redefinition of terms – a redefinition that runs contrary to what the Fathers of the Church meant by these terms.

For example, the Protestants took the meaning of “apostilicity” to refer solely to the teaching of the Apostles. However, when worked through logically, this becomes a bit of a circular argument because “Apostolic teaching” ends up becoming subjective by being equated solely with the teaching of a particular denomination over against the thousands of other denominations in existence, who also claim to hold to “the teaching of the Apostles”.

The Catholic position is stronger than this because whilst it naturally affirms the teaching of the Apostles, it also goes a step further and requires that the direct line of Apostolic Succession exists.

Firstly, this idea of direct succession being necessary for the transfer of true authority and doctrinal purity is biblical (e.g. Matt 10:40; 1 Tim 1:3,11; 6:20; 2 Tim 2:1-2; Tit 1:5).

Secondly, it is taught by the earliest of the Church Fathers. For example, St. Clement of Rome, the third successor of St. Peter wrote in the late first century:

“...[the Apostles] having received perfect foreknowledge, appointed those who have already been mentioned [i.e. the bishops], and afterwards added the further provision that, if they should die, other approved men should succeed to their ministry.” – To the Corinthians

St. Ignatius, a disciple of the Apostle John, had the following to say early in the second century:

“...let everyone respect the deacons as they would respect Jesus Christ, and just as they respect the bishop as a type of the Father, and the presbyters [priests] as the council of God and college of Apostles. Without these it cannot be called a Church.” – To the Trallians

“Those, indeed, who belong to God and to Jesus Christ – they are with the bishop. And those who repent and come to the unity of the Church – they too shall be of God, and will be living according to Jesus Christ...if anyone follow a schismatic, he will not inherit the Kingdom of God....for there is one Flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, and one cup in the union of His Blood; one altar, as there is one bishop with the presbytery and my fellow servants, the deacons.” – To the Philadelphians

“You must all follow the bishop as Jesus Christ follows the Father...Let no one do anything without the bishop...Wherever the bishop appears, let the people be there; just as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.” – To the Smyrnaeans

And late in the second century, we find St. Irenaeus saying the following:

“It is necessary to obey those who are the presbyters in the Church, those who, as we have shown, have succession from the Apostles; those who have received, with the succession of the episcopate [i.e. bishops], the sure charism of truth according to the good pleasure of the Father. But the rest, who have no part in the primitive succession and assemble wheresoever they will, must be held in suspicion.” – Against Heresies

This is just the tip of the iceberg from the Church Fathers, but it illustrates that from the earliest days, the Church has faithfully upheld the doctrine of Apostolic Succession as proceeding from the Apostles themselves. To reject Apostolic Succession, as the “RC Sproul disciple” does, is nothing less than to oppose the Church Fathers, many who were disciples of the Apostles and martyred for their faith.

I know that I have a few Protestant friends reading this blog who made up their minds long ago that the Catholic Church is “evil” and “riddled with heresy”...but I also know that those same Protestant friends have never given the Catholic Church a “fair trial”. What many Protestants believe about the Catholic Church is based on hearsay (for the most part) and sometimes even downright lies which have filtered down through the years since the Protestant Reformation (this is sad, but true. But the Catholic Church has many enemies, the greatest of which is the “father of lies” himself). This kind of evidence would never be allowed to stand in a court of law...it should not be allowed to stand in the court of our hearts and minds either.

So, I would like to take this opportunity to encourage my Protestant friends to give the Catholic Church a fair hearing – don’t make up your mind before you have heard and prayerfully examined all the evidence. For many years, I did...but I just thank God that He granted the grace for me to be open to hear the Catholic position because I now realise that what I was closed to for so long was nothing less than that pearl of great price that our blessed Lord spoke about in Matt 13:45-46. And because the Catholic Church is the true Church of our Lord Jesus Christ, it is only in the Catholic Church that I have really been able to know and experience our Lord in the fullest sense.

And that is why my heart is heavy for my Protestant friends – because I only wish you could know what it is that you are missing out on...

Seeing Jesus in Mary

Earlier this evening, I was reading a blog by Taylor Marshall in which he pointed out that some English translations of the Bible are inaccurate when they translate “megaluno” in Luke 1:46 as “praises” rather than “magnifies”. The main point of his blog was that Mary does more than simply praise God – she magnifies Him or helps us to see a bigger picture of Him.

As I was praying the Rosary this evening and meditating on the Visitation (Lk 1:39-56) in the second decade of the Joyful Mysteries, I realised another beautiful truth about the role of Our Lady. You see, when Mary greeted Elisabeth, Elisabeth knew nothing of the fact that God Incarnate was residing in the Womb of the Blessed Virgin. Yet, moved by the Holy Spirit, Elisabeth exclaimed that the child within her (John the Baptist) leaped for joy in her womb when he heard the voice of Mary, the Mother of the Lord.

As I pondered this thought, I could do little else than ask God to help me to learn more of Mary because she doesn’t just point us to Christ, but she helps us to see Him so much more clearly. And it is only when Mary points us to Jesus (i.e. when we see Jesus in Mary) that we, like John the Baptist can truly leap for joy.