It is lines like this that gnawed at me and finally led me to think that Calvinism, as popularly expressed -- or the line about a snow-covered dunghill, just weren't adequate to account for all that we find in Scripture.
I could say that the blessed may start out as snow-covered dunghills, but I don't think we can rest there, because here the snow-covered dunghill is told that it is called, and, if called, enabled -- somehow -- to make itself pure.
It is too bad we spend so much time at one another's throats. Calvin is good, and so is Luther, on the startling proclamation of the utterly free and completely unmerited gift of grace. They and their followers are often very good indeed on all the temptations to pride with which the enemy assails those who have thrown themselves on God's mercy. In a less bitter environment we could profit much from sharing our experience of living with grace, with the fact of grace.
And such an exchange could hardly be anything less than beneficial to all. Not only history but our own lives and our experience of one another testify to the way "kicking at the pricks" persists after we have been opened to the beginning of awareness of God's love. I could often be profitably rebuked by my non-Catholic friends that I have fallen back into thinking too much depends on me alone and graciously reminded that every good and perfect gift comes from above.
And perhaps we Catholics who wander through an enchanted forest where, as the trees in the fairy tale drip jewels, we find angel, saint, and sacrament shedding consolations -- perhaps we could also sometimes encourage our friends to look up and see, for our salvation is close at hand.
Truth be told, (that would be a nice change, huh?) we all face the problem of: Okay, I'm a Christian, now what? How does one, while remaining utterly dependent on God for every breath and every thought and intention, "make oneself pure, as He is pure?"
Let's pray for a time when we can put down the cudgels and assist one another along the way, across the river, and into the kingdom.
Let's pray for a time when we can put down the cudgels and assist one another along the way, across the river, and into the kingdom.
Hmm, very good. Definitely something that I need to think about today...