Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany
February 3, 2008
Homily for the Anglican Usage Mass
of the
St. Thomas More Society
celebrated at
St. Anthony of Padua Roman Catholic Church , 1013 Wood Street
Scranton, PA
Matthew 5:1-12a
1 Corinthians 1:26-31
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen
A couple of weeks ago I was pumping gas at a station down the street, when a stranger struck up a conversation with me. As we talked, he gave me a tract, a little booklet that told me what I have to do to be saved, that is, what I have to do to get to Heaven. I was not in civilian clothes. He gave me the tract because he noticed I am a Catholic priest.
Many of us have had a similar experience when we have encountered sidewalk evangelists who ask, “Are you saved? Do you know whether you’re going to Heaven when you die?” This morning I am going to tell you how, as a Catholic, you should answer such questions so you can evangelize the evangelists. If you aren’t quite ready for that, you can at least go home today equipped with the knowledge you need to educate your fellow Catholics.
The portion of St. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians that we heard today tells us that God made Jesus our, “…wisdom, our righteousness and sanctification and redemption” (1Cor. 1:30, emphasis mine). That is, our redemption and our sanctification are two different things. Jesus accomplishes them both, but they are not the same thing.
The problem with the question, “Are you saved?” is that it conflates these two gifts that we receive by the merits of Christ. The question itself is an error because it assumes that our redemption and our sanctification are the same thing. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Our redemption, sometimes referred to by Paul as our justification, was accomplished by Christ’s sacrifice of Himself on Calvary. By His death He has redeemed the world. He died in order that all might live, for in His death, the death of Him who did not deserve to die, we sinners receive forgiveness for our sins. We are forgiven by Christ’s sacrifice; so in a sense, we were all saved on a Friday afternoon almost two thousand years ago.
And yet---to be forgiven is not to be made holy. To be justified, to be redeemed, is not the same thing as being sanctified. To be sanctified requires that we be purged of the inclinations that lead us to commit the sins for which we have been forgiven. In other words, just because we have been forgiven does not mean we are ready to stand before the Throne of Grace face to face with the living God. We have been forgiven, but this forgiveness requires our response.
To help you understand this important distinction, let’s consider the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Every Catholic who receives Holy Communion has been to confession. If a confession is genuine, the priest grants us absolution, so that we are forgiven of the sins we committed. Has an inclination to sin suddenly disappeared? No. Do we desire any longer those things we know are wrong and for which we needed absolution? More often than not we still desire them, and, moreover, we must struggle to overcome the temptation to fall back again into sin. So clearly, even though we have been forgiven, this internal struggle indicates that we are not sanctified. To put sin completely beyond us, to be holy as God is holy, means we must assume that manner of blessedness described in today’s Gospel.
The Beatitudes describe, when taken as a whole, the sanctified Christian. They, in fact, describe the saints. And they describe for us not only how we are to be, but also those promises attached to such spiritual maturity. We must not understand the Beatitudes as commandments, because we can, for example, no more will ourselves to mourn than we can will ourselves to grow wings and fly. That is, if we mourn, it is because we are genuinely sad, truly torn by the suffering we see about us. We can act like we are mourning, but God knows our hearts, and no clever disguises will fool Him.
For the attributes described in the Beatitudes to be true of us, our sinful orientation must be transformed, must be changed, must be sanctified. God’s forgiveness of our sins does not automatically make the Beatitudes true of us, but that same forgiveness can open us up to the means of grace that slowly but surely molds us into the sort of persons God has called us to be. Our redemption leads us to seek out our sanctification, leads us to “…work out [our] own salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12), as St. Paul tells us in his letter to the Philippians. Just as our forgiveness is made real when we fulfill the penance assigned to us by our confessor, so Christ’s forgiveness bears fruit when this first grace leads us to desire the grace of sanctification that actually changes us.
We ought t seek this change, this transformation, while we walk this earth, for the Beatitudes describe how we will be should we be so blessed to receive the beatific vision. There is no one in Heaven who is not merciful. There is no one in heaven who is not meek. There is no one in heaven who does not mourn the sins of the world. There is no one in Heaven who is not pure in heart, and until each of the Beatitudes describes who we are, we will not be ready for the inheritance we so desire.
So how might we do this? How does our redemption become the springboard to our sanctification? How do we get ready for Heaven? First, look to the example of those who have gone before us, the saints, who are our icons of sanctity. They demonstrate that the sanctity described in the Beatitudes is must more than an ideal. By the grace of God, such sanctity is a reality. Second, we ought to avail ourselves of the means of grace that the Church offers in her mission to sanctify the world. The Church proclaims God’s forgiveness, but she does more than preach. She gives us the Sacraments that allow for that forgiveness to bear fruit. She also engages in all manner of works of mercy in order that we can see and do for ourselves those things that will make us good citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven. Even if we are not yet sanctified, doing what sanctity requires will develop in us the habits that make Heaven a comfortable home. Third, do not presume your own salvation. I never cease to be amazed by the arrogance of those who assure me they will be in Heaven, particularly as I contrast it with Jesus’ insistence that we must be meek. We live by hope, as our Post-Communion Prayer makes clear, not by assurance, and presuming our salvation, presuming God’s mercy, make us lazy and leads us to assume we need do nothing more than wait for Jesus to return, a problem St. Paul had to address in his letters to the Thessalonians. Rather than worry that people will think we are trying to earn our salvation, we would do much better to work hard that others may know the salvation of God. In other words, the more we do for others, the less we have to worry about ourselves. Indeed the more we do for others, the less we will worry about ourselves.
And that’s the way it should be. If you look at the Beatitudes and take them one by one, you will see that they describe the blessedness of one who has devoted his life to the service and welfare of others. To be blessed, to receive the promises of blessedness, we must live out, in communion with others, the virtues enumerated by Jesus. Herein we see a cardinal truth: our redemption is made manifest not in how much we talk about being saved but in the degree to which this singular grace spurs on to sanctification. So the right question is not, “Are you saved?” but rather, “Is the grace of God continuing to transform you into the person the Beatitudes say you are meant to be?”