“It is by believing with the heart that you are justified, and by making the declaration with your lips that you are saved” (Romans 10:10). My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, these are the words of our second reading for today, on this first Sunday of Lent. Here, the Apostle tells us about salvation –the end of our lives – as we begin this sorrowful season. Why does Church place this reading here? It is because this is what Lent is about, namely death, faith, and justice, which unite us to Christ.
This season is the beginning of many different deaths: the death to the flesh – in fasting, death to self –in penance, and of course the crucifixion and death of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Indeed, Lent is truly a season of pain, abstinence and heartbreak but not only that, for there is one more death to remember, the death to sin. For Lent is not just a gloomy forty days as we wait for Easter. No, Lent is a joyful season because God saw all these deaths as fitting if sin dies, and that death of sin is indeed a joyous thing.
With this fatal reality in mind, let us return to our readings for this Sunday. Starting again with that quote from Romans, where Paul speaks to us about faith, “It is by believing with the heart that you are justified.” What does it mean to be justified? This question of justification has been a question that the Church has struggled with over the last 500 years. You may know of the phrase Sola Fide; this is the Protestant doctrine that man is saved by ‘faith alone.’ Indeed, today Paul seems to affirm this belief. However, the Church, when she proclaims a doctrine is always careful to look to the whole of scripture, and we see clearly that the Protestant understanding of Sola Fide cannot stand as St James in his epistle says that “faith without works is dead.” (James 2:26) So, as Catholics, we hold that yes, we are saved by proclaiming faith in Christ, but also by cooperation with the active graces of God to do good works in our lives. We profess our faith at Baptism, then recommit it in the act of Confession, where we recognize where our works have not collaborated with our promises of Baptism. When we do these acts of faith and works, or better yet, when we let sin die, we are made just before God, which is what justification is.
So, Lent is a time of death to the world, to aid us in letting go of sin and re-professing our faith. When we are deemed as just before God, we are saved. However, the sacraments are not just some magical formulae that expel sin. No, there is a distinct reality as to why Confession and Baptism make us just. It is not because of anything we do. Instead, it is because in these sacraments, we become part of Christ, who is just. Through Baptism, we enter the Church, the mystical BODY OF CHRIST. In sin, we disconnect ourselves from that body, and Confession reunites with it. By being literally part of Christ as members of the Church, we are saved because the degree of His justice is infinitely greater than the degree our sin. So, this Lenten Season, embrace the death of sin, take hold of Christ and His Body, that His grace and death may save us.
Andre Boudreau – St. Joseph Seminary, Edmonton, Alberta
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