Word to the Wise
Friday, October 16, 2015 - Friday in the 28th Week in Ordinary Time
[Rom 4:1-8 and Luke 12:1-7]FRIDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2015 FRIDAY IN THE TWENTY-EIGHTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME [Romans 4:1-8 and Luke 12:1-7] "A worker's wage is credited not as a gift, but as something due. But when one does not work, yet believes in the one who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness." Catholics are often accused of a kind of "Pelagianism." This is a hersy which held that a human person could gain salvation by their own efforts. Some Catholics give the impression that if they pray enough or do enough good deeds or accumulate enough "indulgences," God will HAVE TO give them eternal life. It is this kind of thinking that sparked the Reformation. But it is not the teaching of the Church. Faith should motivate us to pray and do good deeds, but it is by faith that we are saved and not by our quantifiable efforts. The quotation from St. Paul shows that we are not in an employer-employee relationship with God. God has made promises to humanity and God is faithful to those promises. But we sometimes think we have a right to compel God to do certain things. This has been a problem since the Garden of Eden, and Catholics have to be careful in thinking that we have "God in a box"and can control salvation. The Church is a gathering of faithful people who can help one another along the way. We are not the producers of God. AMEN Sent from my iPhone
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