Life In The Spirit Seminar. Salvation. Mary Queen of Peace Parish Billings, MT September 25th-26th, 2015

Transcription

1 Life In The Spirit Seminar Salvation Mary Queen of Peace Parish Billings, MT September 25th-26th, 2015 Fr. James Northrop - Presenter

2 Salvation History Moses & The Exodus The centrality of worship vs the desire for prosperity The role of the Prophets Unless the Lord Builds A House (The Tower of Babel vs. Pentecost) 1 Corinthians 12:2 Expansion & Inclusion of All Nations (Isaiah 25) Then Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, Go sacrifice to your God within the land. 22 But Moses replied, It is not right to do so, for what we sacrifice to the Lord, our God, is abhorrent to the Egyptians.* If we sacrifice what is abhorrent to the Egyptians before their very eyes, will they not stone us? 23 We must go a three days journey in the wilderness and sacrifice to the Lord, our God, as he commands us. 24 Pharaoh said, I will let you go to sacrifice to the Lord, your God, in the wilderness, provided that you do not go too far away. Pray for me. 25 Moses answered, As soon as I leave you I will pray to the Lord that the swarms of flies may depart tomorrow from Pharaoh, his servants, and his people. Pharaoh, however, must not act deceitfully again and refuse to let the people go to sacrifice to the Lord. 26 When Moses left Pharaoh, he prayed to the Lord; 27 and the Lord did as Moses had asked, removing the swarms of flies from Pharaoh, his servants, and his people. Not one remained. 28 But once more Pharaoh became obstinate and would not let the people go. New American Bible. (2011). (Revised Edition., Ex 8:21 28). Washington, DC: The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. On this mountain* the Lord of hosts will provide for all peoples A feast of rich food and choice wines, juicy, rich food and pure, choice wines. 7 On this mountain he will destroy the veil that veils all peoples, The web that is woven over all nations. 8 He will destroy death forever. The Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces; The reproach of his people he will remove

3 HOW GOD S PLAN WORKS God did not take Israel in order to concern himself just with that one people and to leave all the others to their own devices. And so it is, in turn, if we look at Christ and the Church. Here again, it is not a matter of everyone being forgotten by him; rather, it is a matter of everyone being there for the sake of one another. The mystery of Israel and the mystery of the Church are both intended to teach us one and the same thing: that God wants to come to men only through other men. That he does not send his lightning down vertically upon the individual, so that faith and religion would be worked out simply between him and that individual. He intends, rather to construct the meaning of history in our service to one another and with one another. Thus, being a Christian means constantly and in the first instance, letting ourselves be torn away from selfishness of someone who is living only for himself and entering into the great basic orientation of existing for the sake of another. What It Means To Be A Christian - by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger pp.56-57

4 The Four Spiritual Laws God loves you and offers a wonderful plan for your life. Humanity is sinful and separated from God. Therefore, he cannot know and experience God's love and plan for his life. Jesus Christ is God's only provision for man's sin. Through Him you can know and experience God's love and plan for your life. We must individually receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord; then we can know and experience God's love and plan for our lives. (Baptism

5 Experiencing Salvation Freedom from fear to life in abundance Impacts every area of our lives (relationships, work, health, etc) The Holy Spirit is the first installment! Liberation from the slavery of sin. Sanctifying Grace (Friendship with God)

6 Purgatory A purifying encounter with the fire that burns but does not destroy The good kind of pain. (Eustace in the Voyage of the Dawn Treader An extension of God s mercy but also recognition of justice. With death, our life-choice becomes definitive our life stands before the judge. Our choice, which in the course of an entire life takes on a certain shape, can have a variety of forms. There can be people who have totally destroyed their desire for truth and readiness to love, people for whom everything has become a lie, people who have lived for hatred and have suppressed all love within themselves. This is a terrifying thought, but alarming profiles of this type can be seen in certain figures of our own history. In such people all would be beyond remedy and the destruction of good would be irrevocable: this is what we mean by the word Hell. On the other hand there can be people who are utterly pure, completely permeated by God, and thus fully open to their neighbours people for whom communion with God even now gives direction to their entire being and whose journey towards God only brings to fulfilment what they already are Yet we know from experience that neither case is normal in human life. For the great majority of people we may suppose there remains in the depths of their being an ultimate interior openness to truth, to love, to God. In the concrete choices of life, however, it is covered over by ever new compromises with evil much filth covers purity, but the thirst for purity remains and it still constantly re-emerges from all that is base and remains present in the soul. What happens to such individuals when they appear before the Judge? Will all the impurity they have amassed through life suddenly cease to matter? What else might occur? Saint Paul, in his First Letter to the Corinthians, gives us an idea of the differing impact of God s judgement according to each person s particular circumstances. He does this using images which in some way try to express the invisible, without it being possible for us to conceptualize these images simply because we can neither see into the world beyond death nor do we have any experience of it. Paul begins by saying that Christian life is built upon a common foundation: Jesus Christ. This foundation endures. If we have stood firm on this foundation and built our life upon it, we know that it cannot be taken away from us even in death. Then Paul continues: Now if any one builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw each man s work will become manifest; for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work which any man has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If any man s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire (1 Cor 3:12 15). In this text, it is in any case evident that our salvation can take different forms, that some of what is built may be burned down, that in order to be saved we personally have to pass through fire so as to become fully open to receiving God and able to take our place at the table of the eternal marriage-feast. 47. Some recent theologians are of the opinion that the fire which both burns and saves is Christ himself, the Judge and Saviour. The encounter with him is the decisive

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