Posted on 02/09/2013 1:44:37 PM PST by NYer
February 9, 2013. (Romereports.com) Benedict XVI will announce on Monday the date for the canonization of over 800 new saints for the Catholic Church, during a consistory with cardinals. Among the soon to be saints are Mother Laura, the first Colombian saint, and Mother Lupita, the second female Mexican saint.
Mother Lupita co-founded the religious congregation of the Handmaids of Saint Margaret Mary and of the Poor in Jalisco, Mexico. Mother Laura Montoya founded the Missionaries of St. Mary Immaculate and St. Catherine of Siena to help local indigenous people.
If miracles were a standard for salvation, why does Paul warn us to be in 2 Thessalonians 2:9 of false signs and wonders?
We must always be on our guard against prelest, against spiritual deception. False miracles are the coal upon which the fires of prelest burn.
We should instead turn our attention to that threefold miracle which truly matters, namely that Christ died to destroy our death, rose again to life to restore us to life, and that by trusting in Him and placing our faith in His finished work we are adopted as sons and daughters by His Father into His Heavenly Kingdom. Anything else is a futile attempt to add to what Christ has already done.
Our good works do not save us, as they are not ours but are rather the grace of God working through us; at the end of the day we are but unprofitable sinners. If we trust in our works to save us, we are dead, because we have taken credit for what God Himself has done. But a saving faith necessarily produces good works or it is no faith at all and we are dead despite our protests that we believe.
I personally have no doubt that these men are saints. Their act of choosing martyrdom instead of conversion to an heathen faith, however, does not in itself make them saints. Nor are they saints because of any miracles which may or may not be attributed to them. They are, rather, saints insofar as they placed the whole of their faith in Jesus Christ and His accomplished work for their salvation; that alone is what makes them saints. Martyrdom is simply perhaps the greatest of fruits that can come of one's faith. But martyrdom does not save us. Insofar as they had courage to stand martyrs and insofar as as they had the grace to actually choose death in the service of Heaven and Christ rather than death in the service of Hell and Satan, they did so solely because God granted it them.
Good deeds do not make saints. Miracles do not make saints. Men sitting on thrones in ancient cities do not make saints. Saints come from the work of Jesus Christ alone and the faith which He grants us to have in Him.
“Their act of choosing martyrdom instead of conversion to an heathen faith, however, does not in itself make them saints.”
“If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
#stuffJesusactuallysaid.
What about love for your neighbour? Does that make you saved?
Then knarf: I prefaced my comment to imply no animosity nor derision ... but I know you guys like to fight about it.
So, knarf, I mean to imply no animosity nor derison, but when did you stop beating your wife?
Sheesh, folks think that they can call Christians polytheists with "no animosity" by say "I mean to imply no animosity" and then throwing the muck?
do you read anything before commenting? The list of saints is by no means and never portrayed as being the only list of those who are saved. The saints we know of are heroes/heroines of the faith — role models who followed the great role model - Christ. There are plenty of those who are not known of — and the Church knows that, but these canonized saints are the ones we do know of
refusing to convert to Islam and getting killed is pretty much more than either you or I have done...
And Lutherans and Anglicans recognize some of the saints as defined in Catholicism
apparently animosity means ‘full of soul’ ;)
Loving your neighbor does not save you. If you were to come before God's throne on Judgment Day and point out all the instances where you have loved your neighbor as a reason as to why you ought to be accepted into the Heavenly Kingdom, the Divine Judge will certainly point out countless more instances where you have sorely failed to love your neighbor.
You quoted Christ's command: "My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you." Can you, myself, or anyone reading these comments truly claim to have kept this commandment in full? Insofar as we have done so, has such success been of ourselves or has it been of the grace of God working within us, enabling us to fulfill the commandment? And if it is of God, can any of us truly take credit for it, or should we, instead, give all glory to God and recognize that when we act of ourselves we are unprofitable servants?
Loving your neighbor does not save you. Martyrdom in itself does not save you. Any good deed that any of us could hope to bring forth to God at our Final Judgment as reason for why we should be saved will be met in one of two manners: God will explain how our deeds have fallen short of balancing out our sins and how whatever true good we have done, we have done by way of His grace alone.
How, then, are we saved? When we come before God's judgment, what shall we offer? We shall offer that God has adopted us as sons and daughters through faith in Jesus Christ. We are foolish if we attempt to offer our own works in addition to this work of Christ -- that which we have done that is considered golden in God's sight has been purely by God's Hand alone (and thereby all glory for such acts belongs to Him), while whatever we have added by way of our own works is simply straw and pyrite.
Martyrdom, like all good works, is a finger pointing at the moon. If one thinks that martyrdom is what will save that person, one is merely looking at the finger. The moon is that Faith in Christ which inspired the martyr to point hist or her finger in the first place.
Good works are necessary if we are to claim that we truly have the faith Christ demands of us, and we are all commanded to be martyrs if need may be. We are gravely mistaken, however, if we see fit to trust in those works to save us or if we try to add them to the accomplished work of Christ. For, as Ephesians 2: 8 - 10 says:
"For by grace you are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, for it is the gift of God; Not of works, that no man may glory. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus in good works, which God hath prepared that we should walk in them."
“Loving your neighbor does not save you. If you were to come before God’s throne on Judgment Day and point out all the instances where you have loved your neighbor as a reason as to why you ought to be accepted into the Heavenly Kingdom, the Divine Judge will certainly point out countless more instances where you have sorely failed to love your neighbor.”
The martyr has no such concerns. :)
You draw a distinction where none exists, between loving God and loving my neighbour. As Christ himself said, “and the second is like it.”
None of what you write actually comes from Jesus. It comes from you. Jesus is very clear.
I think you are misreading me and looking for arguments where none need exist. I am not sure we are in disagreement so much as we are looking at the same thing in different ways.
The martyr indeed has no such concerns. If any action points to the faith that Christ demands of us, that faith that saves and whereby we are adopted by the Father as sons and daughters, it is martyrdom.
But it is the faith that led to martyrdom that saves a man, not the martyrdom itself. I would go a step further and to say that to refuse martyrdom when presented it is to reject all claims one might make that one has the faith that saves.
A verse from Scripture comes to mind:
“And behold one came and said to him: Good master, what good shall I do that I may have life everlasting? Who said to him: Why asketh thou me concerning good? One is good, God. But if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. He said to him: Which? And Jesus said: Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness. Honour thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”
Which one of these Commandments of the Law did Jesus say would save the man? We were created to do these things. We don’t get extra credit for doing what we were created for, any more than an employee gets a bonus for doing the bare minimum of his duties.
Every good work we perform is the bare minimum of our duties as Christians. Every sin is where we fall short of our duties. The greatest saints who performed the most wonderful acts of charity and mercy, rather than going above and beyond, were barely doing the minimum of what God’s righteousness and holiness expects of us. Wherein we sin we fall short of what God expects. Even the greatest of saints were substandard workers in God’s eyes by their own merits... what hope is there for us?
God gives us only one way to go above and beyond.
“The young man saith to him: All these I have kept from my youth, what is yet wanting to me? Jesus saith to him: If thou wilt be perfect, go sell what thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come follow me.”
In following Christ alone do we go above and beyond. That is the only point we can make before God in our favor. Everything else is simply telling our employer, “Well, yes, I was screwing around and neglected most of my duties pretty much all the time, but hey, look at all the times I swept and tidied up the shelves!”
Our good works add up to sweeping and tidying up the shelves when compared to God’s righteousness and what He expects from us.
“If any action points to the faith that Christ demands of us”
The very act of:
1, proclaiming faith in Christ.
2, refusing to deny Christ.
3, submission to God and subsequent execution makes one a martyr.
Counts for this.
Yes.
Where are you perceiving a disagreement? I said I have no doubt that the men in question are saints. :)
Well, then, the Pope will need to list half this panet if that’s the bar.
Well then. I apologize. I thought you were still questioning it.
and they are listed - we have the feast of All Saints :) you know all the saints that we don’t know of —and there are plenty of them...
Martyrdom for Christ is the highest profession and work of faith one can make. The amount of faith it takes to lay down one's life in this world for life in the next is much greater than a mustard seed.
I'd say martyrdom is actually the highest bar that exists, at least when it is understood that it is not the martyrdom itself that saves but the saving faith that underlies it that really matters. How many of us can say we would do the same when faced with the same circumstances? We like to think we would, but what we would like to do and what we would actually do are two separate things.
Faith consists not in believing the right things about everything but rather in hearing the words of our Lord and doing them. The martyr has done this more fully than any of us can claim to have done and there is absolutely no reason to doubt the sainthood of a martyr, no matter what creed he professed in life so long as he professed Christ.
But, again, it is the faith that saves and not the action which points to the faith. I believe that this is an essential distinction, though I firmly believe God cares less whether we understand this distinction than he does about us doing what He commands.
Oh, I was never questioning it in the first place and I absolutely apologize if I gave that impression. My issue was more with the popular conception of what constitutes a saint rather than with sainthood itself. Saints are not saints by mere virtue of what they have done, which, as I said, is the bare minimum of what God expects of us in the first place, but rather because of the deep faith towards which such acts point. I realize that as a Catholic you may disagree but I was merely expressing my viewpoint on the matter.
But woe unto me if I ever question the salvation of those who have expressed their faith in a far greater manner than I could ever hope to do!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
