Q U I C K S C A N

The question evangelicals always ask
We have been saved.
We are being saved.
We will be saved.

Readers reflect on Friar Jack’s musings

by Friar Jim Van Vurst, O.F.M.

The question evangelicals always ask

Have you been saved? Even if you haven’t been asked that question directly, I’m sure you have heard it or read it in various places. And as you know, this is a phrase we associate primarily with evangelical Protestants. You won’t see "have you been saved?" in Catholic literature.

It’s not that it is a bad phrase at all. After all, we all wonder about salvation. But it is a scriptural phrase (John 3:16) that is often taken extremely literally. If you don’t say, “I’m saved because I have received Jesus into my heart,” your salvation in the eyes of some may be suspect.

I recall one minister who was asked by a television commentator during the funeral service for the late Pope John Paul II about “the pope being in heaven.”  His comment was, “Well, we just don’t know, do we? If he accepted Jesus into his heart as savior, then he is. But we don’t know if he did that.”

To Catholics (actually, most people) it was an absurd comment on the part of the minister. The pope might have not have received Jesus? Impossible. His whole life was about Jesus.

So, how do we Catholics treat salvation in our own theology?  We look at salvation in three ways, which make up our whole doctrine: We have been saved. We are being saved. We shall be saved.

We have been saved.

It was Jesus’ life, death and resurrection that brought about salvation for every person who had lived and would live and for the entire universe.  Jesus died for all people, no exceptions, and his death and resurrection opened the opportunity for salvation for all people. Jesus died for the religious leaders who were scoffing at him just as he died for his mother, Mary. He died for the vicious Roman soldiers as much as he did for Peter, the apostles and for all the people who had been born before him.  Are we saved?  Yes, indeed we have been saved.

We are being saved.

We walk our journey on this earth, and we honor and thank Jesus for what he did for us. The first external act in our faith is that we are baptized, often as infants because of the love of our parents who wanted to share their faith with us. We were saved when we were baptized. We were filled with the life of the Trinity and God’s grace. As we grew older, we learned more about Jesus, about God and all the goodness of God in our lives. We receive the other sacraments, especially the Eucharist, whereby we not only receive Jesus into our hands,  but also receive him into our very selves. Have we received Jesus? There is not a doubt in the world that we have. Every sacrament we receive is a personal meeting with Jesus.

It is on our earthly journey that we try to live the gift of faith in Jesus and in his death for us. Our good deeds do not save us. Jesus did that. But in our everyday lives we try to live out Jesus’ command: “Love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself.” Those commands are translated in many ways in our everyday lives. The good deeds we do are our way of saying, “Thank you, Jesus, for this gift of faith." We never do this perfectly, of course, and we regularly ask the Lord’s forgiveness for our failures. So as our journey goes on, we are always being saved day after day.

We will be saved.

As we look to the future, there comes the moment when we breathe our last, step into eternity and in the next moment see the Lord. We know with absolute certainty we have been saved! We enter heaven or purgatory as I discussed in my January and February columns. Even in purgatory, we know we are saved and will eventually have that perfect union with God (which is heaven) for eternity.

Our Catholic theology of salvation is rich and includes the past (Jesus) the present (our journey filled with God’s grace) and the future (our union with God). There is nothing magical about salvation. It is not about a few words we say, but about Jesus’ redeeming death, our response to that magnificent gift and our ultimate destiny with God for eternity.  Are we saved? Oh, yes indeed. We have been, are being and will be saved.

Friar Jack’s Inbox

Readers respond to Friar Jack’s musings on “Stay Close to Life-giving Waters.”

Dear Friar Jack: One passage of a water image that I like is, "There is a river whose streams gladden the city of God." I understood this as the great river of the love of God bringing joy to the people of God. The streams are the lesser sources of joy, and they are the love that people are to show to others. Perhaps it is a symbol of God’s will that his love should be joined to our love to swell the river and to cooperate in the dispensing of joy. Don

Dear Don: Such images of water basically suggest the life-giving presence of God, and they can be interpreted in many possible ways. I like your idea of mixing our little streams with the larger stream of God’s life-giving presence and goodness. The passage you quote is from Psalm 146:5. My New American Bible translates the verse this way: “There is a stream whose runlets [little streams] gladden the city of God, the holy dwelling of the Most High.” The city of God is Jerusalem. God’s presence there is certainly its source of peace, blessing and abundant life. The river is clearly symbolic because Jerusalem is not literally located on a river nor does it have a great water source.

The verse you speak of again takes me back to the “river of life” flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb (Jesus) down the streets of the New Jerusalem—as found in Revelation 22:1-3. (See “Stay Close to Life-giving Waters.”)

Another image in the New Testament that reminds us of God and of Jesus as our source of life is Jesus’ metaphor of the vine and the branches (from last Sunday’s gospel). Jesus is like a river of life or of nutrition (sap) that flows through the vine and into the branches making us all alive with the life of God. As Jesus said, “I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).

Don, I pray that the true Vine will nurture you and our whole online community, bringing us day by day into greater life and unity. Peace and all good! Friar Jack

Send your feedback to friarjack@americancatholic.org.

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