Posted on 12/17/2005 7:10:55 AM PST by NYer
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Even those who spend their lives serving the church must recognize that faith alone will save them, the preacher of the papal household told Pope Benedict XVI and his closest aides.
"Christianity does not start with that which man must do to save himself, but with what God has done to save him," Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa said in his Dec. 16 Advent meditation.
The preacher told the pope and top Vatican officials that they, like St. Paul, must avoid any temptation to think that the good works they have accomplished will guarantee their salvation.
"Gratuitous justification through faith in Christ is the heart" of St. Paul's preaching "and it is a shame that this has been practically absent from the ordinary preaching of the church," he said.
Father Cantalamessa said that the Protestant Reformation debate over the role of faith and works led the Catholic Church to focus so much on the need for the demonstration of faith in actions that it practically ignored the need for faith in the first place.
St. Paul, in his Letter to the Philippians, warned believers of the "mortal danger" of putting their own good works between them and Christ, as if the works would save them, Father Cantalamessa said.
Conversion to the fact that faith in Christ is the only means of salvation "is the conversion most needed by those who already are following Christ and have lived at the service of his church," the Capuchin said.
"It is a special conversion that does not consist in abandoning the bad, but abandoning the good, in a way," he said. "It means detaching oneself from everything one has done, repeating to oneself, 'We are useless servants; we have done only what was required.'"
Father Cantalamessa told a familiar Italian story about the shepherds near Bethlehem going to visit the newborn Jesus, each of them trying to outdo the others with the beauty of the gifts they offered.
One poor shepherd had nothing and was ashamed.
"Mary could not figure out how to accept all the gifts, since she was holding the baby in her arms," he said. "So, seeing the poor shepherd with his hands free, she handed Jesus to him."
"Having his hands free was his fortune and it should be ours as well," Father Cantalamessa said.
Are you sure about this?
He is a very private man and rebuffs such questions.
I view this problem as being far more profound than any of us can possibly understand. Those raised from childhood without faith (his parents were both baptized but non practicing) are then confronted with a tableau of myriad religions. In marrying a Catholic and commiting to raising her child Catholic, he was given far greater exposure to the Catholic Church, attending Masses, First Communions, Confirmations, Weddings, Funerals, etc. He never raised any questions about our faith but has followed the nuanced twists and turns we have each experienced on our own personal journeys.
A catholic coworker and his catholic wife, married in the Catholic Church, have never baptized their now 5 year old daughter. They are not practicing catholics and the child has had NO exposure to the Catholic or any other church. They celebrate Christmas as a secularist holiday. When asked why they never baptized their daughter, they respond that the choice of faith rests with her. Is this not secularism? I pray for them every day; it just breaks my heart. Without a base on which to build, how does one approach moral decisions in their lives?
Even for those who believe in "Baptism of Desire", it is a bit of a stretch to claim that a man with a lifetime of opportunity and surrounded by a family of believers, but who still does not come to the Sacrament, has any good hope of salvation if he does not repent, believe and be baptized.
Essentially, that is my pastor's response, though he also offered the hope that in meeting God in death, His mercy may yet prevail.
If my father predeceases me and if I am given the opportunity to be at his deathbed, I will baptize him myself, regardless of what he or my mother say. That is my fervant prayer.
Date: 2005-12-18
Father Cantalamessa's 3rd Advent Sermon (Part 2)
Righteousness That Comes From Faith in Christ
VATICAN CITY, DEC. 18, 2005 (Zenit.org).- Here is the second part of a translation of the Advent sermon delivered Friday by Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa, Pontifical Household preacher, in the presence of Benedict XVI and members of the Roman Curia.
The sermon was the third in a series. Father Cantalamessa is offering a series of reflections on the theme "'For What We Preach Is Not Ourselves but Jesus Christ as Lord' (2 Corinthians 4:5): Faith in Christ Today." Part 1 appeared Friday.
* * *
4. Justification and Confession
I said at the beginning that gratuitous justification by faith should transform itself into lived experience for the believer. We Catholics have an enormous advantage in this: the sacraments, and in particular, the sacrament of reconciliation. This offers us an excellent and infallible means to experience anew each time justification by faith. In it is renewed what happened once in baptism, in which, says Paul, the Christian has been "washed, sanctified and justified" (cf. 1 Corinthians 6:11).
The "admirable exchange" ("admirabile commercium") takes place in each confession. Christ takes on my sins and I take on his righteousness! Unfortunately in Rome, as in any great city, there are many homeless person, poor brothers dressed in dirty rags who sleep on the street, and who drag with them everywhere they go their few belongings. We could imagine what would happen if one day the word spread that in the Via Condotti there was a luxurious boutique where each one of them could go, leave their rags, take a good shower, pick out whatever they want, and take it, just like that, free, "without expense, without money," because for some unknown reason the owner had given to them all this out of generosity.
This is what happens in each well-made confession. Jesus inculcated this with the parable of the prodigal son: "Quickly bring the finest robe" (Luke 15:22). Rising up anew after each confession we can exclaim in the words of Isaiah: "For he has clothed me with a robe of salvation, and wrapped me in a mantle of justice" (Isaiah 61:10). The story of the publican is also repeated: "O God, be merciful to me a sinner." "I tell you, this one went home justified" (Luke 18:13f).
5. "So that I can know him"
Where did St. Paul get the marvelous message of gratuitous justification by faith, in harmony, as we have seen, with that of Jesus? He did not get it from the Gospels, for they had not yet been written, but rather from the oral tradition regarding the preaching of Jesus, and above all from his own personal experience, that is, from how God had acted in his life. He himself affirms this by saying that the Gospel that he preaches (this Gospel of justification by faith!) he did not learn from men, but rather from what Jesus Christ revealed, and he relates that revelation with the story of his own conversion (cf. Galatians 1:11ff).
Upon reading the description that St. Paul makes of his conversion, in Philippians 3, the image that comes to my mind is that of a man who moves forward in the night, through a forest, with the help of the weak flame of a candle. He makes sure that the candle does not go out, for it is all he has to help him on his way. But after a while, continuing on his way, the dawn arrives; in the horizon the sun rises, and his little light fades quickly until soon it's not even noticeable, and he throws it to one side.
The little light was for Paul his righteousness, a poor smoky wick, though based in high sounding titles: circumcised on the eighth day, of the line of Israel, Hebrew, Pharisee, impeccable in observing the law ... (cf. Philippians 3:5-6). One good day, in the horizon of his life the sun appeared: the "sun of righteousness" that he calls, in this text, with infinite devotion, "Jesus Christ, my Lord," and thus his righteousness appeared to him "loss," "rubbish," and he did not want to be found with his own righteousness, but rather with that which comes from faith. God allowed him to experience beforehand, dramatically, what he was called to reveal to the Church.
In this autobiographical text it is clear that the central focus for Paul is not a doctrine, even if it were that of justification by faith, but rather a person, Christ. What he desires more than anything else is to "be in him," "know him," where that simple personal pronoun says an infinite number of things. It shows that, for the Apostle, Christ was a real, living person, not an abstraction or an ensemble of titles and doctrines.
The mystical union with Christ, through participation in his Spirit (the living "in Christ," or "in the Spirit"), is for him the final goal of Christian life; justification by faith is only the beginning and a means to achieve it.[7] This invites us to overcome the contingent polemical interpretations of the Pauline message, centered on the theme of faith-works, so as to find again, underneath them, the genuine thought of the Apostle. What is important for him to affirm before everything else is not that we be justified by faith, but rather that we be justified by faith in Christ; it is not so much that we be justified by grace, as much as that we be justified by the grace of Christ.
Christ is the heart of the message, even before grace and faith. After having presented, in the preceding two and a half chapters of the Letter to the Romans, all of humanity in its universal state of sin and perdition ("all sinned and are deprived of the glory of God"), the Apostle has the incredible courage to proclaim that this situation has changed radically for all, Jews and Greeks, "in virtue of the redemption in Christ Jesus," "through the obedience of one man" ([cf.] Romans 3:24; 5:19).
The affirmation that this salvation is received by faith, and not for works, is present in the text and it was perhaps the most urgent to clarify in the time of Luther. But that takes second place, not first place, especially in the Letter to the Romans, where the polemic with the Judaizers is much less present than in the Letter to the Galatians. It was erroneous to reduce to a problem of schools, within Christianity, what was, for the Apostle, an affirmation of much greater and universal reach.
In the description of the medieval battles there is always a moment in which, the archers, the cavalry and all the rest overcome, the fray centers around the king. The final battle is decided here. Also for us the battle is fought around the king. As in the time of Paul, the person of Jesus Christ is at stake, not this or that doctrine regarding him, no matter how important that doctrine might be. Christianity "remains or falls" with Jesus, and with nothing else.
6. Forgetting the past
Continuing with the autobiographical text of Philippians 3, Paul suggests to us the practical idea with which we will conclude our reflection:
"Brothers, I for my part do not consider myself to have taken possession [of perfect maturity]. Just one thing: forgetting the past but straining forward to what lies ahead, I continue my pursuit toward the goal, the prize of God's upward calling, in Christ Jesus" ([cf.] Philippians 3:13-14).
"Forgetting the past." What "past"? That of the Pharisee, of what he had said before? No, the past of the apostle, in the Church! Now the "gain" to consider a "loss" is something else: It is precisely having already considered once everything lost to the cause of Christ. It was natural to think: "What courage, this Paul: to abandon such a good career as a rabbi for an obscure sect of Galileans! And what letters he has written! How many trips he undertook! How many churches he founded!"
The Apostle warned confusedly of the mortal danger of putting between himself and Christ "his own righteousness" derived from works -- this time the works done by Christ -- and he reacted vigorously. "I do not believe," he said, "that I have reached perfection." St. Francis of Assisi, in a similar situation, cut short any temptation of self-complacency, saying: "We begin, brothers, to serve the Lord, because until now we have done little or nothing."[8]
This is the most necessary conversion for those that have followed Christ and have lived serving him in the Church. A conversion altogether special, which does not consist in abandoning evil, but rather, in a certain sense, in abandoning the good! That is, by detaching oneself from all that you have done, repeating to yourself, according to the suggestion of Christ: "We are useless servants; we have done only our duty" (Luke 17:10). And not even, perhaps, the good we should do!
A beautiful Christmas story makes us want to arrive to the Nativity, with a heart that is poor and empty of everything. Among the shepherds who presented themselves on Christmas night to adore the Child, there was one so poor that he didn't have anything to offer and he was very much ashamed. Upon arriving to the cave, the shepherds fought among themselves to offer their gifts. Mary didn't know how to receive all of them, for she had the Child in her arms. So, seeing the poor shepherd with his hands free, she gave him Jesus to hold. Having empty hands was his fortune, and on another level, it will also be our fortune.
* * *
[7] Cf. J.D.G. Dunn, "La teologia dell’apostolo Paolo," Brescia, Paideia, 1999, p. 421.
[8] Celano, "Vita prima," 103 ("Fonti Francescane," No. 500).
[Translation by ZENIT]
"Are you sure about this?"
Of course not...that's why I didn't say I think he is baptized by desire, though he might be for all we know. If you thought organized religion had been decimated and undermined but still had a deep Christian faith and lived by it are you then baptized by desire?
He makes me think of some of the characters in Walker Percy's books...especially a priest who climbed into a fire tower to live because nothing else made sense to him anymore.
###"Too many Catholics think or believe that all they need to do is be good and then they will be saved. Faith is left out of the equation all together."###
I must add that many Catholics have not the slightest idea in what it takes to get to heaven. And the reason for that is the poor chaterchetics.
Bad headline, good theology. If anything it's a gentle smack against the extreme "peace and justice" crowed.
Maybe not by water, but by desire?. As well as we may know someone, the inner sanctum of an individual can hold things that even his or her closest family members know nothing about. Your father may well be preforming good works born of a faith that remains hidden, for what ever reason. Our Lord works in mysterious ways, Pray and trust in Him always, as I know you do.
Careful, when I posted some quotes from Luther, they got pulled within minutes. I don't think bad-mouthing Luther is allowed here.
I'm rather fond of "Romish" and "Papist" actually. :) But I think you know why.
I'll permit it in your case. ;-)
That "translation" of the Bible you posted up there reads horribly, I mean absolutely horribly. Do yourself a favor and get a hold of a Douay-Rheims of Douay-Challoner Bible.
Wishing to be honest, and assuming you "want truth rather than poetry," I would say theat his situation is "tenuous." Not "hopeless," by any means, but one that would not be especially comforting to him. The reasons I believe this is the case are fairly straightforward.
Certainly, the objective standard that Jesus gave for the minimum requirement for salvation is to "believe and be baptized." When this is done, sanctifying grace infuses the soul, and stays there, increasing through meritorious cooperation with actual grace, until mortal sin removes such sanctifying grace. For the Catholic, this grace is normally restored through sacramental confession. That's the normal situation or pattern that we're both familiar with.
At the moment, your dad has not availed himself of baptism, and is not eligible to receive any other sacraments without baptism. So, clearly, he has not yet met Jesus' own objective standard. Here is where it gets a little more touchy, and, again, I don't mean to sound dire, but I will just state the logical outflow of what the Church teaches.
If he were not baptized because he was the stereotypical "caveman in the rain forest," and never heard of Jesus, then appealing to God's ability to work salvation outside of His Sacraments would make some sense. Even here, though, the caveman in question would not have any "right" to salvation, it's just that, since God is sovereign in every way, He can save whom He wills to save. His sovereignty proves the old maxim that "He is Author of the Sacraments, but He is not bound by them." So a caveman, or other person in a similar situation, may have recourse to the pleading, but the outcome is already "uncertain," since nothing could be "demanded" by him of God.
Now let's take the case of your dad. He is no caveman. He has been surrounded by believing Christians of various stripes all his life. I'm sure that you and your mom have pressed on him the urgent need for baptism as the initial means to salvation. But he has not embraced it. If this is a willful refusal, and he has sufficient knowledge of its importance, then he is in serious jeopardy. You say he is a perfectionist; perhaps he is also afflicted by a form of pride that, consciously or unconsciously, tells him that he can get to heaven "his way" instead of the way Jesus specified. If that is true, then he can hardly claim real invincible ignorance on even this, the most basic Christian requirement.
Or, perhaps not! If, somehow, he is not so much "willfull" as he is, in fact, truly oblivious to the requirement for baptism, then he IS "invincibly ignorant," despite the surrounding by Christians. But that is not really great consolation for you or your family, as there is nothing concrete here to hang onto. His judgment will depend not on grace, not on merit of cooperation with sanctifying grace (he can't have any), but *solely* on the combination of God's sovereignty and mercy that we have no direct evidence is used often. After all, as a matter of "strict justice," ALL of us who have attained the age of reason and have committed personal sins have no claim to heaven, outside of the means God has established for our justification. We simply don't know "how" or "how often" the unbaptized can pass God's muster, only that they can in theory. This is small comfort.
Nor can your dad appeal to his works, in any objective sense. The Church is quite clear that ALL works done prior to baptism count for nothing, for works alone do not save anyone. He may receive "actual grace" to do good, since that's how ANYONE does good, for no one can do any good at all without God's prompting. But those works do not save, since they are not the products of our cooperation with grace while we are in a *state of grace*. In other words, until one is baptized, one cannot be in a state of sanctifying grace, no matter what one does. While in that state, however, our continued cooperation with the grace of God IS meritorious, and in that sense, the good works that result are salvific. The cooperation with grace is what matters. That is all we can really "do." The rest is from God.
But your dad is not in this situation, either. It is impossible for him to appeal to God that his good deeds thus far can lobby for his entry into paradise.
So, as I said in the beginning, his situation is "tenuous." God *might* save him in his current circumstances, but the Church says clearly that it doesn't know how this is done; it is a "mystery." Were I your father, I wouldn't want to stake my eternity on something as vague as that. Especially when Jesus was so clear on the necessity of baptism, and His Church has taught the same things as He has for 2000 years on this subject. Clearly, it would seem that he *does* believe in at least *some* of the Christian message; he must have heard Mark 16:16, Acts 22:16 and other similar passages before, so his reluctance is puzzling.
Has he ever said "why" he refuses to be baptized to you or your mom? It might explain a lot of things. I will remember his and your situation in my prayers.
I understand your feelings when you say that you will baptize him yourself. But baptism needs consent to be valid. In infants, the consent is supplied by the parents and godparents. In older children and adults, the consent must come from the baptized person directly. If your dad repudiates the baptism you give him, it will not be valid. He must agree to it.
I don't know, but I am reminded that Christ did heal a man because of the faith of his friends. True, that man did not seem able to make a decision for or against Christ, but it's something to remember. God Bless.
From the Catechism of the Catholic Church on mixed marriages, section 1637 in reference to 1Cor7:14 :
"For the unbelieving husband is consecrated through his wife and the unbelieving wife through her husband."
It is still referred to as the Sacrament of Marriage because of this.
Please see CCC section 1660: "Christ the Lord raised marriage between the baptized to the dignity of a sacrament."
So you are saying, today you can be married in a Catholic ceremony with the Holy Mass being said and not have a Sacramental marriage because one spouse is Jewish or nonreligious or whatever?
Canon Law allows the real dissolution in certain cases of a marriage contracted between a baptized and an unbaptized person (canon 1142, aka the "Petrine Privilege"), with subsequent marriage permitted. This obviously could not happen with a sacramental marriage, which is absolutely indissoluble (canon 1141).
That's what I thought too, but it's not the case in the situation of an unbaptized person. That section speaks to the marriage of a Catholic and a baptized non-Catholic.
see code of canon law 1055;
Can. 1055 §1. The matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life and which is ordered by its nature to the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring, has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament between the baptized.
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