St. Mary's Church Elizabeth, IL

9/6

A Closer Look at Faith and Works (3)

Have Catholics and Protestants resolved their differences?

The document further goes on to point out that "In the (Lutheran) doctrine of "justification by faith alone,'a distinction but not a separation (emphasis added) is made between justification itself and the renewal of one's way of life that necessarily follows from justification and without which faith does not exist" (sect 26).  Faith and works are, in the words of the old song, like love and marriage.  "We confess together that in Baptism the Holy Spirit unites one with Christ, justifies, and truly renews the person.  But the justified must all through life constantly look to God's unconditional justifying grace" (sect 28).

Unfortunately, this ground-breaking Declaration has not been widely and enthusiastically embraced by the Church.  The words of Abraham Lincoln reflecting on the reception of his memorable second Inaugural Address may help us understand why it takes so much time before our own agendas and those of God can coincide:  "Men are not flattered by being shown that there has been a difference of purpose between the Almighty and them."  Let our prayer be that, as was the case of Lincoln's Address, this document will come to take its rightful place in the consciousness of the faithful as a fundamental building block of the Church of the third millennium.

What Vatican II had to say

Implied throught the Declaration but made explicit in a particular passage with in it is hte tremendous importance of the Second Vatican Council in deepening the Chruch's understanding of the movement of grace and the fundamental meaning of the Incarnation.  "With the Second Vatican Council, Catholics state: to have faith is to entrust oneself totally to God, who liberates us from the darkness of sin and death and awakens us to eternal life...Recognizing his own failures...the believer may yet be certain that God intended his salvation (sect 36).

     Most importantly, the Declaration and the Vatican II documents in their entrety remind us that the "deposit of Faith"-the entirety of Christian belief transmitted through Scripture and the ongoing Tradition of the Church-is not a safety deposit box gathering dust but is the ongoing attempt to give tangible expression to the ever-changing and transformation movements of the Holy Spirit.

Fr. Joachim