The Catholic Church is necessary for salvation

Today is the first Sunday of Lent. Last Wednesday was Ash Wednesday, the beginning of this penitential season in which we accompany Jesus in His Forty day journey through the desert where he fasted and was tempted by the devil three times! We received ashes and heard the words, “Remember man that thou art dust and to dust you will return.”

These last words remind us of the words of Genesis 2:7 “The Lord God formed man out of the clay of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life. And so man became a living being.” Man received his soul for in Gen 1:27, “God created man in His image; in the divine image he created him, male and female, He created them.”

In Gen. 3 we read of the fall of man, the refusal to obey God’s command, through the temptation of the serpent, the devil, the enemy of man. His friendship with his Maker was severed and he lost his place in paradise wherein was growing the tree of life. God stationed the cherubim and the fiery revolving sword to guard the way there to. This sharing in God’s very being, this life is a spiritual reality. St. Augustine said, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord! And our hearts are restless until they rest in thee.”

The Old Testament is the story of salvation history of how God dealt with the Israelites to test them, to form them. How they were given the law by Moses after they were freed from bondage in Egypt and finally how they reached the promised land of Canaan. Their relationship with God was erratic. They gave in to their sinfulness and corruption. But through the prophets they learned of God’s plan to send a Savior, a Redeemer, the Messiah. “The virgin shall be with child, and bear a son and shall name him Emmanuel.” God is with us. Is 7:14

This is the realization of the plan of God the Father that His only Son, Jesus Christ, God is with us would come down from Heaven to give Himself up for mankind as the Pascal lamb on the cross, the price of our redemption from which comes the sanctifying grace that makes us holy.

The Israelites although they had received the promise of the friendship of God from Abraham, our common father in faith, did not exercise the faith but relied on the law. “For the law was given by Moses; Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” Jn1.

St. Paul in Gal 3:10 says, “For those who rely on the works of the law are under a curse. For it is written cursed is everyone who does not hold to all things that are written in the book of the law, to perform them. But that by the law no man is justified before God is evident, because He who is just lives by faith, but the law does not rest on faith. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, becoming a curse for us…. That the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, that through faith, we might receive the promise of the spirit.”

The promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. He does not say, “And to his offsprings, as of many but as of one. And to thy offspring who is Christ.

St. Paul concludes this section of the promise of God in chapter three of Galatians with these words, “For all you who have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor freeman, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus, and if you are Christ’s then you are the offspring of Abraham, heirs according to promise.”

On August 6, 2000 the prefect of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith who was Cardinal Ratzinger and who is now Pope Benedict XVI issued a declaration titled “Dominus Iesus” on the unity and salvific universality of Jesus Christ and the Church”. It and the approval of Pope John Paul II it came about as a necessity to make clear the Church’s position in the face of many misinterpretations by other religions and other Christian Bodies who took offense the Catholic Church’s claims.”

In section 21 is this statement “It is clear that it would be contrary to the faith to consider that Church as one way of salvation alongside those constituted by the other religions seen as complimentary to the Church or substantiality equivalent to Her even if these are said to be converging with the Church toward the eschatological Kingdom of God.”

Section 22, “With the coming of the Savior Jesus Christ, God has will that the Church founded by Him be the instrument for the salvation of all humanity.” (Acts 17:30~31)

Section 23: In treating the question of the true religion, the fathers of the Second Vatican Council taught: “We believe that this one true religion continues to exist in the Catholic Apostolic Church to which the Lord Jesus entrusted the task of spreading it among all people… Teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Mt 28:19~20)

Especially in those things that concern God and His Church, all persons are required to seek the truth, and when they come to know it, to embrace it and hold fast to it.”
We remember that Jesus said to Thomas in Jn. 14:6, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me. If you had known me, you would also have known my Father. And hence forth you do know Him, and you have seen Him.”

We have said these things to emphasize the Gospel words today of Satan to Jesus “If you are the Son of God” and Jesus reply, the devil tried to induce God to do His bidding. Satan tries to get us to follow Him but our response must be the same as Christ’s, “You shall worship the Lord your God and Him alone shall you serve.”

If we look back to the fourth century we see that a priest named Arius taught that Jesus did not have a divine nature and that he has not the only Son of God. This heresy Aryanisms was adopted by almost the whole world at the time. It lasted for about four hundred years and it has reappears in every age since. It is present in our own time.

The Church was brought forth by the blood and water from Christ’s side as He died on the cross, the sign of baptism and Eucharist. Christ is the head of the Church and those who are baptized into Him by water and the Holy Spirit comprise His mystical body. The Church is militant, suffering and triumphant, those on earth, in purgatory and in heaven. By way of the communion of Saints we all interact through prayer and grace.

The document Dominus Iesus was written for Non-Christians and for Christians of other faiths of whom many are baptized of water and the Holy Spirit. Therefore it follows that since the one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church was founded by Jesus Christ. It is necessary for salvation. And has the fullness of all truth within it. And to this unity all people are called.

The promises were made to the Jews but have been subsumed in Christ and they the Jews are called to baptism to make a profession of faith and to confess their sins. As are Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and all other outside Christianity. The church has made known the love of God for every human being and has said that the grace of the cross will be available to touch each person who through no fault of their own does not know Christ. Evangelization and missionary work therefore must continue.

The declaration Dominus Iesus in 21 states this “With respect to the way in which the salvific grace of God which is always given by means of Christ in the spirit and has a mysterious relation to the church comes to individual Non-Christians, the Second Vatican Council limited itself to the statement that God bestows it in ways known to Himself.”

In Closing I give the example of John Henry Cardinal Newman who spent his early life as an Anglican clergyman, his struggled with finding the truth brought him to the Catholic Church in the middle of the nineteenth century. He died at 89 having been made a Cardinal by the Pope our Holy Father has extended an invitation to the Anglican community for any who desire to enter to the Catholic Church. About four hundred thousand have said they are interested. Newman said, “That before all things it is necessary to hold the Catholic faith, that he who would be saved must thus think and not otherwise”

During the Second World War many Jews in Rome were protected by Pope Pius XII, the chief Rabbi of Rome became a Catholic along with his wife. Another case was that of Edith Stein, a member of a large Jewish family in Holland, she and a sister became Carmelite nuns. During the war they were killed in the Ovens of Auscluitz. Edith Stein, sister Benedicta of the cross along with St. Catherine of Sienna and Saint Therese of Lisieux is a patroness if Europe.

These converts all sought baptism in the Catholic Church. The Lord says it is necessary along with faith in Him.

The penitential season of Lent is a time for us to count our blessings to be graceful for our faith in Jesus Christ and to open our hearts to Him who is the way the truth and the life.