This is an excerpt and it really shows that our strength in faith is SO important.
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Dear Brothers and Sisters,
In the Catechesis last Wednesday I spoke of how man is justified before God. Following St. Paul, we have seen that man is unable to "justify" himself with his own actions, but can only truly become "just" before God because God confers his "justice" upon him, uniting him to Christ his Son. And man obtains this union through faith.
In this sense, St. Paul tells us: not our deeds, but rather faith renders us "just". This faith, however, is not a thought, an opinion, an idea. This faith is communion with Christ, which the Lord gives to us, and thus becomes life, becomes conformity with him. Or — to use different words — faith, if it is true, if it is real, becomes love, becomes charity, is expressed in charity. A faith without charity, without this fruit, would not be true faith. It would be a dead faith.
Thus, in our last Catechesis, we discovered two levels: that of the insignificance of our actions and of our deeds to achieve salvation, and that of "justification" through faith which produces the fruit of the Spirit.
The confusion of these two levels has caused more than a few misunderstandings in Christianity over the course of centuries. In this context it is important that St. Paul, in the same Letter to the Galatians radically accentuates, on the one hand, the freely given nature of justification that is not dependent on our works, but which at the same time also emphasizes the relationship between faith and charity, between faith and works:
"In Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love" (Gal 5:6). Consequently, there are on the one hand "works of the flesh", which are "immorality, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry..." (Gal 5:19-20): all works that are contrary to the faith; on the other, there is the action of the Holy Spirit who nourishes Christian life, inspiring "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control" (Gal 5:22-23). These are the fruits of the Spirit that blossom from faith.
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I really like the following passage:
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We would be underselling the inestimable value of justification, purchased at the high price of Christ's Blood, if we were not to glorify him with our body. In fact, our worship — at the same time reasonable and spiritual — is exactly this, which is why St. Paul exhorts us "to present [our] bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God" (Rm 12:1).
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