Replies

...because I didn't want her to bug me about it. So, I recognize this tactic well.

Lol - The opposite for me...I couldn’t get away from a southern belle fast enough.... Bob Jones Grad.... Jim and Tammy Faye salvation ... yikes... ancient history though...
We have to go with what we perceive to be the truth to be sure.... to do otherwise is living a lie... regardless of how it is What we believe in...

Now in that you say Mass attending people think they can earn - or even buy! their salvation - that may be true- but it does not represent the Church or what it teaches. Many are mislead by culture as well...
Yes, bad catechesis thrives in the Church- but that is human error, not doctrinal... heck the SJWs ministries of the Church and their “works” do not even bring Christ to into The life of those they serve- in the same vein as the pro-abort Pew sitters who see nothing wrong with their egos..sins of men...NOT the Church

So tell me if you’ve heard this before:

But Catholics are always doing, doing;; they're always doing something to be saved. Of course that's true, because what father wants his children to be sitting around all day without learning, growing, working and maturing -- that is, becoming like Him? When we pray, "Lord, come into my heart," we're doing something. When we say, "Lord, I want to receive you into my heart as my personal Lord and Savior," we are saying and doing something. When we sing, attend church, study Scripture, share the Gospel, likewise. But then salvation is just God paying us for our works, which Paul condemns. True, Paul condemns those who make salvation a wage or salary. Let me say that again. We are not teaching that salvation is in any sense an earned wage or salary. Rather, it's a reward by way of inheritance.
What child ever bought his way into the family? Entrance into the family, membership in the family, is pure gift. Or what parent ever told a child, "You will inherit and rule in the family no matter what you do? Salvation is a reward only in the sense that an inheritance is.
From start to finish it's pure gift. Even growing up and learning and doing is a gift received by children appropriating the parents' gifts of life and truth. So its straight from the life and hearts of the parent, in this sense God the Father, into the body and soul of a child, the Son of God, the Christian. This is the Bible, this is St. Paul, this is St. James and this is the Catholic Church. Matthew 5, verse 12: "Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in heaven." Matthew 7, verse 21: "Not everyone who says to me 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven." Matthew 19:17: "If you wish to enter into life, keep the Commandments." Romans 2, verse 6: "God will render to every man according to his works." Romans 2:13: "For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified." Colossians sums it up very well;; chapter 3, verse 23: "Whatever you do, do from the heart as unto Christ, knowing you'll receive of the Lord the reward of inheritance." Given to children, of course. First John, chapter 3, verse 7: "Little children, let no one deceive you, he who does right is righteous as He is righteous."

.... There are two views of justification and faith here involved. The Protestant view is built upon God understood primarily in terms of His holiness as a judge. We are understood primarily in terms of guilty criminals. Christ is an innocent but willing victim substitute. Hang the penalty. Justification then is just simply a legal exchange. We get his legal righteousness;; he gets our punishment. The Catholic Church agrees with all of these but regards them as partial truths. The Church tries to put them in the broader context, in this case the notion of the divine family, the notion of divine sonship. God is a holy Judge, but even more, He's a loving Father. His holiness and His judgment are that of father's heart. God is a loving Father;; we are the ones He makes His children. Jesus is the one who dies and rises to give us his own divine sonship and nothing less than his own divine sonship. Justification is therefore His declaration of that sonship and, as I've mentioned, He does what He declares by declaring it [Isaiah 55:11]. God's word does not return to Him void. It accomplishes the purpose that He set out to accomplish. So salvation and justification in the Catholic tradition is regarded, then, as growing up to be a mature, loving hard working son of God or daughter of God in His family, the Church of Christ.

Now, I don't sense that this in any way detracts from the righteousness of Christ. To me it perfectly manifests the righteousness of Christ which is put within our souls, not just legally, but actually alive and powerful because the Holy spirit transforms our nature. When we're justified we are transformed, we are not only acquitted and forgiven. We are made children of God and not only criminals who are taken off of death row.

Assurance does belong to the Catholic doctrine, that is, the assurance of moral certitude, as the Council of Trent and Catholic theologians define it. It's the kind of certainty I have that my parents are my parents and I am their child. I have the Holy Spirit, and so I have that moral certitude that comes from the Holy spirit, that comes from my own growth and life in Christ, that I am in fact a child of God. But that moral certitude is not to be identified with my faith itself. My faith is not in my faith, but in Christ who made me a child of God by giving to me His own righteousness. I am a child of God because God has not only imputed but also imparted, and that's the big difference. Has He only imputed a legal righteousness, or has He also imparted a divine sonship? Has He only decreed me innocent, or has He done what He has decreed by making me a living child of God with the life of the Father living and breathing and moving within me, so that my works are really nothing but my Father's works in and through me?

Have you heard it explained this way before?

.