April 18, 2012

The Universal Effect of Christ and the Church's Role, Briefly

Far be it from me to say that a person who has never heard of Christ is not saved by Christ, and made part of his risen life — in fact I think she is. Salvation is the work of Christ, not us. But the point of the sacraments, given to the church by Christ, is that they are objective means of grace: a person who is baptized is definitely incorporate in the mystical body of Christ. Grace is not limited to the sacraments, but the sacraments "certify" as well as impart grace. That is part of the root meaning of sacramentum.  The impetus of evangelism is to spread that word, and empower people to become conscious of their salvation and to give thanks for it: precisely what baptism and eucharist are about.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

1 comment:

  1. JohnPApril 25, 2012

    This is an extremely clear and valuable statement, which I will likely be quoting (with proper attribution).

    ReplyDelete

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