Crossed The Tiber

An Evangelical Converts to Catholicism

My Photo
Name:
Location: Pennsylvania, United States

I was born into the Catholic faith. At 14, I was "born again" and found Jesus personally but lost His Church. After thirty years as an evangelical protestant, I have come full circle to find that He has been there all the time, in the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. I wish others to find the beauty and truth of the Catholic faith as I have found.

Thursday, May 17, 2007

Salvation "Outside" The Church

In the aftermath of the Beckwith Incident, I have noted a recurrent discussion in the BSphere regarding salvation "outside" the Church and the anthemas of Trent, etc.
Mark Shea has a nice piece here.

"Catholics do not say, and never have said, that they are the sole possessors of revelation. Indeed, the Church does not “possess” revelation at all. Revelation possesses her; and that revelation, who is Christ, has, she teaches, committed Himself fully to her. “God,” said the great Protestant writer George MacDonald, “is easy to please, but hard to satisfy.” On the one hand, God is delighted when the most miserable sinner takes the smallest serious step toward the love of God and neighbor. On the other hand, He will not be completely happy until every last person He came to save is completely perfected in the image of Christ and overflowing with perfect love for God and neighbor. This same pattern is supremely evident in the Catholic Church’s understanding of her relationship with her members, whether in full or very imperfect communion. For the Church is happy to recognize even the smallest commonalities she may share, not only with other Christians, but even with non-Christian religious traditions and the great philosophical traditions of paganism. The Church can even find things to affirm in virtuous atheists. But at the same time, the Church is acutely aware that there is a real difference between imperfect and perfect unity and so she, too—easy to please, but hard to satisfy—labors toward that day when all the members of the Body of Christ will be perfected in faith, hope, and love.

Till that day, we know where the Church is; we do not know where she is not."

1 Comments:

Blogger MMajor Fan said...

Thank you for pointing this article out... I just read it and it's marvelous. He has a gift for explaining the logic behind the belief and that's great.

May 17, 2007 11:24 PM  

Post a Comment

Home

Universalis