As mentioned in reflection on last Friday’s first reading, the epistle to the Galatians, the apostles make clear that justification does not come by works of the law: “For all who depend on works of the law are under a curse.” The Church has, from its earliest times, condemned “works salvation” as early as the 4th century AD in addressing the Pelagian heresy. The dialogue was severely muddied in the Reformation of the 16th century (and following) with the position of “faith alone” from the Reformers most severely expressed in strict Calvinism. The reformed apologist shakes the bones of St. Paul for the better argument of faith alone. The Catholic apologist shakes the bones of St. James to counter that faith without works is dead. Even that obfuscates the Catholic position: “grace alone.” It is from the grace of God accepted in the freedom of a person that gives rise to faith and works – not “of the law” but of the corporal and spiritual works of mercy.
Our justification comes from the grace of God. Full stop. Grace is favor, the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of God, adoptive [children], partakers of the divine nature and of eternal life. Grace is a participation in the life of God. It introduces us into the intimacy of Trinitarian life: by Baptism the Christian participates in the grace of Christ, the Head of his Body. One receives the life of the Spirit who breathes charity into him and who forms the Church. (CCC 1996-97)
Justification establishes cooperation between God’s grace and man’s freedom. On man’s part it is expressed by the assent of faith to the Word of God, which invites him to conversion, and in the cooperation of charity with the prompting of the Holy Spirit who precedes and preserves his assent. (CCC 1993).
But what about freedom and the “yoke of slavery”? In today’s first reading St. Paul speaks of a “yoke of slavery,” and it’s important to understand that he is not condemning the law itself. The law given to Moses was holy and good, but it could not bring salvation. It could not free humanity from sin. Instead, it often became a burden, a set of regulations that people felt they had to keep perfectly in order to be righteous before God. Never realizing that righteousness was always a gift from God.
That gift includes Jesus who fulfilled the law. Through His death and resurrection, He broke the chains of sin and death, giving us the freedom to live as children of God. We no longer have to rely on external rituals or practices to justify ourselves before God. Our salvation is a gift, freely given, through Christ. The question is will we freely accept the gift and then respond, in love, to love’s demands.
In Christ, the old distinctions like circumcision or uncircumcision no longer matter. What matters, Paul says, is “faith working through love.” This is key and a point worthy of considerable reflection because our faith in Jesus is not something abstract. It is not simply about believing certain things or checking off religious requirements. True faith is alive, and it is made manifest in love. A living faith expresses itself in the way we love one another, the way we serve those in need, the way we forgive and show compassion – all powered by God’s grace.
As Pope Francis often reminds us: the Church is not a museum of saints but a hospital for sinners. We are all in need of God’s mercy, and it is by grace, through faith, freely expressed in love, that we receive and share that mercy with others.
Image credit: George Corrigan, CC-BY-NC-ND