Are Catholics 'saved' Part 4

As we continued our conversation it kind of shifted from understanding salvation to understanding how and what works mean and their relationship to our salvation. Our conversation continued:

Joe: “If Paul says we have to work out our salvation how do we do that? Does that mean Christ didn’t really win our salvation? It doesn’t make any sense.”

Fr. Chris: Jesus did win salvation for us. He redeemed us by dying on the cross. His death opened the gates of heaven for us. But accepting that Jesus redeemed us means that we recognize what Jesus has done to free us from sin. We still have to ‘walk through those gates’ ourselves. We have a part to do as well.

Joe: But that sounds like we earn our own salvation. We can’t earn our salvation.

Fr. Chris: You're exactly right. We don’t earn our salvation. Jesus won that salvation for us. We are saved by our faith in Jesus Christ but we are not saved by faith ALONE.

Joe: So if our accepting Jesus as our Savior is not enough then what else do you think we have to do?

Fr. Chris: There is a Baptist minister named Hyle who wrote a book where he responded to the bible verse quoted from St. Paul and said:

“I must not depend on my works for the salvation of my soul, but I must give myself constantly to the working out of my own salvation; that is, the salvaging of my life. It is His [God’s] business to salvage me from the garbage can. It is my business to do my part in working to see that I am salvaged in recycling...”

He sums it up well by saying that God has salvaged us from the garbage…from death due to our sins. But we must do our part too not only embrace that salvation but to continue to work to keep it. Our actions, our worship, our relationship to God, our desire to remain in a holy relationship with God all play a part in living out that salvation. We can't earn our salvation but we can lose it either because of what we do or because of our decision to turn away from God...to sever that relationship with Him.

Joe: I guess that brings me back to the first question I asked this morning. (The question he asked was: "Isn't that what Catholics believe [about doing works]? Don't you believe that you have to go to confession and do all these other things or you won't be saved?) I am struggling to figure out what we are supposed to do for our salvation.

Fr. Chris: Do you still think that we only have to accept Christ as our Savior?

Joe: No. I think I can see what you are saying about our having to do more than simply accept Jesus and I think I am ok with that. "I guess now I don’t understand why Catholics do all these other things. How do we know what else we have to do? Why do you think we are supposed to go to confession or that we have to be baptized to accept Jesus. Why would you pray to Mary and to saints if Jesus is our Savior?"

Fr. Chris: Those are all good questions.

Joe: "I just realized that I've been in here for over an hour. I don't want to take up all your time."

Fr. Chris: That's ok. I'm happy to help you any way I can. If you want we can make an appointment to talk again about the questions you have.

Joe: I think that’d be good.

This is when he asked me if there was any way he could get some thoughts from others on what we talked about. I told him I did take notes during our talk. He took a look at the notes and read them over. He agreed that this was a good summary of our conversation and asked how we could let others see it. For some reason, my blog came to mind. I mentioned the blog and he thought that was the perfect forum…open to the public yet anonymous enough that he was comfortable with it.

So, here we are. I have had another meeting with him and have talked to him on the phone a couple of times. As I mentioned in my previous post, he has been reading the blog and it is helping him. He has a lot of questions still but really wants to continue with this. So, sometime next week I will begin posting our conversation from this last meeting we had. Until next time…God bless.

posted by: crossman at 11:03 | link | comments (1) |
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Are Catholics 'saved' Part 3

I am sorry I haven't made an entry in awhile. I was sick most of last week and spent much of that time simply trying to keep up with my day-to-day responsibilities at the parish. I am feeling better now and so I will continue the discussions I have had with "Joe" about the Catholic faith. I have met with "Joe" again since my last post and we continued discussing the Church. He is happy with what I have posted and said I presented it fairly. He was also happy with the comments that were made and told me that they helped him in his thinking.

It seems that this is working and I asked "Joe" if he wanted to continue the postings. He said a definite yes! With that said, I appreciate your comments and encourage you to keep making them. You are evangelizing and catechizing him with your comments just as much as I am.

It looks like, between the remainder of the conversation from the first visit and the conversation from this last visit, I will be making at least another 5 entries of our discussion. I don't want to present too much material in each entry because I want you readers to have an opportunity to comment on specific elements of the conversation. So, with that in mind I am posting below the 3rd of the 4 parts of the first conversation. I'd recommend re-reading the first two before starting on this one so you get the general flow of the conversation since this all occurred in the same 1 hour period. So, our conversation continued:

Joe: “But, do Catholics believe that Christ won them their salvation?” If I can’t be sure of my salvation then neither can Catholics. ”So, Christ didn’t win us our salvation?”

Fr. Chris: “Catholics don’t deny that Christ won our salvation. We would say that he ‘redeemed’ us. He opened the gates of heaven for us.”

Joe: What’s the difference? It sounds like the same thing we believe?

Fr. Chris: “We do have the same basic belief.” We both believe that what Christ did won us salvation. But when we say he ‘redeemed’ us we are talking about him exchanging his life for ours. We deserved to die for our sins but Jesus died for our sins instead. It is because of his redemption that we can be saved. He won our salvation by redeeming us.

Joe: I still don’t see the difference.

Fr. Chris: His redemption is absolute. He exchanged his life for ours. Neither of us denies that. So when we “accept Christ as our Lord and Savior” we are recognizing that he exchanged his life for ours. He won our salvation. But, our being ‘saved’ is more than simply recognizing that redemption he won for us. Our accepting or rejecting that cannot change the fact that Christ DID redeemed us. But what we do in our lives does show whether we truly embrace that salvation ourselves.

Joe: But the bible says just that. Paul says in Acts to “Believe in Jesus Christ and you will be saved.”

Fr. Chris: It does but we can’t just read one verse of Scripture by itself. We have to look at that verse in the context of other things that Paul said about salvation. For example, Paul says in Philippians that “every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord” but right after that he says that they are to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” (Just so you don’t think that I am some walking bible, ‘Joe’ had told me on the phone some of the issues he wanted to discuss so I had looked up the Scripture passages beforehand that I knew spoke on salvation. BTW, the reference is from Philippians 2:12)

I am going to stop here because our conversation changes direction here from understanding 'salvation' to understanding how we are to work out our salvation. I'll make my next post in the next day or two. Until next time...God bless.

posted by: crossman at 17:45 | link | comments (1) |

Are Catholics 'saved' Part 2

I want to continue posting the conversation I had with a young man who is seeking to better understand the Catholic faith. I had a couple of comments from the last post and I agree 100% with you that he AND we continue to seek to understand the Catholic faith better. It is a life-long process that even the most holy persons, such as John Paul II, spend their lives growing in understanding.

In the last part of the conversation that I posted a few days ago, 'Joe' had stated that "proclaiming Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior guarantees me my salvation." Our conversation continues from there:

Fr. Chris: “What happens after you proclaim Christ as your Lord and Savior?”

Joe: What do you mean? “I have accepted Christ. I am saved.”

Fr. Chris: “So someone is saved even if they go out and commit murder as long as they have accepted Christ as their Lord and Savior?”

Joe: Well, no. If he did that then he really didn’t accept Chris as his Savior or he wouldn’t have sinned like that.

Fr. Chris: “So if I understand you correctly, that once you have accepted Christ as your Savior then you don’t sin any more?”

Joe: Well, no. You still sin, but you don’t commit such terrible sins like murder.

Fr. Chris: “What sins could you commit that would show that you didn’t accept Christ?”

Joe: “Sins like murder or adultery or stealing.”

Fr. Chris: “What about lying? Would lying mean you didn’t accept Christ?”

Joe: “Well...no. Lying is not something that would mean you didn’t accept Christ.”

Fr. Chris: “Why? Isn’t it one of the Ten Commandments just like murder, adultery or stealing?”

Joe: “Well…yes it is but it doesn’t necessarily mean you didn’t accept Jesus as your Savior.”

Fr. Chris: “So how can you know what sins cause you to lose salvation or if you’ve committed a sin that will lose you your salvation?”

Joe: Um…I don’t know. You would just know…others would know.

Fr. Chris: So then by accepting Jesus as your Lord and Savior you are not necessarily guaranteed salvation. You might do something later in your life to lose that salvation but you are not sure what would cause you to lose it.

Joe: “I don’t know. I guess you could lose that salvation, but I’m not sure. It seems kind of confusing to me now. Can I ask my pastor about that?”

Fr. Chris: “Sure. Feel free to ask your pastor about any of the things we discuss. I just want to try to help you understand what Catholics believe. I don’t want to confuse you or anything.”

I am going to stop there for now as our discussion begins to go in a different direction from here. I will endeavor to make my next post on this on Monday or Tuesday. Until next time...God bless.

posted by: crossman at 06:57 | link | comments (3) |

Are Catholics 'saved': part 1

As I posted yesterday, I am in an ongoing discussion with a man who has questioned whether Catholics are 'saved' due to the vast differences in our beliefs and the beliefs of his denomination. I will be referring to this person as Joe throughout these blogs and I will be referring to his denomination simply as the Saved Church. Comments that Joe made that are direct quotes from him will be in "quotation marks." They will also be italicized and in bold. At other times, I am going to paraphrase what was said since I did not write down his exact words for everything. I will include any clarifications I need to add for my readers by highlighting them in yellow. Our first conversation was a few days ago and started like this:

 Joe: I wanted to visit with you today and probably a few more times over the next month to ask some questions about the Catholic Church. I have alot of questions about your faith, my faith and the differences between the two. I attend 'Saved Church' and in a conversation with our pastor about two weeks ago someone said it was sad that Catholics "aren't saved." I asked our pastor if that was true and he said, "Unfortunately it is true. Catholics just don't understand that you have to accept Jesus Christ as your personal Savior. Because they won't do this they are not saved and will be damned to hell."

Fr. Chris: Do you believe that?

 
Joe: I don't know. My pastor said that Catholic don't think that accepting Jesus as Savior is enough. He said, "Catholic might think they believe in Jesus as their savior but they don't really think that or they wouldn't do all these other things to 'save their soul' like go to confession. They think they can do these other things and earn their salvation."

I guess my first question is, "Isn't that what Catholics believe? Don't you believe that you have to go to confession and do all these other things or you won't be saved? But doesn't the bible say that we only have to believe in Jesus and we are saved? That's what Jesus told Nicodemus (referring to John 3:18 which says, "He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed.") He continued, "Proclaiming Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior guarantees me my salvation."

That is the foundation to our conversation. Even though this is just the start, I wanted to stop here as we begin getting into the heart of our first discussion next. We continued discussing and exploring his understandings of the Church for almost two hours and most of our topics originated from these statements above. I will post the first 10 or 15 minutes of that conversation in the next couple of days. Again, both he and I welcome your comments and insights to our discussion. Until next time…God bless.

posted by: crossman at 08:29 | link | comments (2) |

Are Catholics 'saved'

Its been about ten days since I've blogged, but I am going to be blogging a number of times in the next couple of weeks on an interesting topic: Are Catholics 'saved?' Many denominations believe that publicly proclaiming Jesus as your 'personal Lord and Savior' ensures that you have salvation However, they also believe Catholics are damned for not having this belief. I am having an ongoing discussion with a person who has come to me wanting to better understand the Catholic faith. He admits that he is interested in becoming Catholic but that his pastor at the church to which he belongs has told him that he is damning his soul to hell if he becomes Catholic. Right now, he is just curious and expects to defend his faith to prove that the "beliefs of our faith have already saved him and that Catholics are lost" to quote his pastor.

Before I begin describing our discussions, I want to make three things clear. 1) I specifically asked this man's permission to post our conversations on my blog after he expressed interest in hearing the opinions and insights of other and learned that I had a blog. 2) I have changed his name and will not mention the name of his denomination anywhere in this discussion as per his request. 3) Our discussions  have been open conversations and he does not consider them spiritual direction or any other form of confidential discussion. He will be reading the blog entries but will not respond to them on the blog itself. Rather, he has asked that I clarify any information he believes is incorrect regarding our conversation and present for him any comments he wishes to make.

What I am going to post over the coming weeks are basically transcripts of our conversations. I took notes during our conversation - again at his request - so that we would have a record of where our conversation has been going and what we have discussed. He is very open to new ideas and the views of the Catholic Church but also is still strong in his beliefs as well. Lastly, he really does want comments, insights and opinions of my readers (this is specifically why he was so open and excited about my posting this to my blog) so I highly encourage my readers to post comments. He was very clear that he would not be offended in any way by the comments that were posted.

With that said, I will make the first entry with the opening of our conversation tomorrow. Until tomorrow...God bless.

posted by: crossman at 11:45 | link | comments |
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