Salvation 

Refer to our Sunday Experience pages to find different prayers to pray as a family sometime during the week as well as setting up a prayer space and other activities as a family.

For the Learn do the following:

1. Watch Video at the top of the page. (if you want more resources, or are interested in learning more about the topic click on the Extra tab).
2. Click on the appropriate grade for your child.
3. Read the "relates to..." section at the beginning.  This is helpful to understand what to convey to your child is important about this lesson.  It will        help make the lesson both an intellectual and a lived lesson.
4. Read through and familiarize yourself with the sample script. 
5. Teach your child the lesson, either using your own words or the sample script.
6. Either discuss the questions with your child (best option), or have your child write out answers to the questions.
7. Have your child do the activities and/or do the activities with them.  
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All Content for "The Way", Learn, is original content and copyright of the Diocese of Kalamazoo and may not be copied, reproduced, or used without prior written consent of the Diocese of Kalamazoo.   © 2020 Diocese of Kalamazoo

Relates to Jesus: Salvation is the central act of God's love for us, in that His Son, Our Lord Jesus who had become man died for us, and in doing restored the possibility of friendship and eternal union with God, so that we may have eternal happiness with Him. This is the ultimate act of love. 

Relates to my Faith: If God cares so much for us that he would die for us, what are we to do in return? Can we love as He loves? We must live our lives as if His death matters in our lives. Justice demands the positive response of giving our lives to God and living for Him.

Sample Script:

What is everybody’s favorite thing about their birthday? Sure, the cake and the games are fun, right, but I think most of us would think that the best part is receiving the gifts! Presents bring so much excitement and joy and help us to understand the purpose of our birthday; namely to celebrate the gift of our life. The gifts that we receive help us to remember that we are gifts to the world when we love one another and treat each other with kindness and respect.

When Jesus was on earth, from a newborn baby until He was a 33-year-old adult, he brought us many gifts, the first being himself. He grew and learned and played and prayed just like you and me. He grew up with His mom, Mary, and His dad, Joseph, and did all the normal kid things that a kid during His life would do, getting exposed to the faith of His parents (cf. Luke 2:22-38) and even causing worry among His parents (cf. Luke 2:41-52). Then, as an adult, Jesus taught and preached about the Kingdom of God while also showing people the love and mercy of God present before the people, by healing the sick, forgiving their sins, and even raising the dead, but the crowning gift that he gave us was our salvation. Jesus’ love for others came from His love of God and His example as given to us from the Bible invites you and me to love God and love others in the same way.

In simple terms, Salvation is being saved from danger or disaster, like when a lifeguard saves us from drowning in water that is too deep for us if we are not good swimmers. What danger or disaster were we in that Jesus needed to save us? Jesus saved us from eternal death--permanent separation from God--caused by the sin of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden when he died on the cross and rose from the dead. Their sin was disobedience to God who commanded that they not eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. They chose to listen to the word of the Devil over the word of God. For this, all people until the time of Jesus, were not allowed to enter Heaven.

However, God did not create us to be separated from Him. He wanted to restore us to himself. To do this, He asked his only begotten Son, Jesus, if he would willingly come to earth to give his life so that people could be in union with Him again. Jesus said yes, and came to earth as a little baby through his mother, Mary. Jesus came to teach people the Truth about God's love. Many people listened, but many would not. Those that didn't wanted to kill Jesus because they didn't want to know the truth about God because they wanted to live in their sins. So, they put Jesus to death on a cross thinking that would silence him forever. They didn't realize it, but instead of getting rid of Jesus, God raised him from the dead, and his death reversed the disobedience of Adam and Eve exactly according to God's plan. By doing so, Jesus restored us to the Father making it possible for all to be saved. This is called redemption. (It might help to think of redemption as a moment, and salvation as an ongoing process.)

The work of Jesus' salvation for us continues today in the work of sacramental life of the Church, of which, we, as Catholic Christians, must be a part if we want to enter Heaven. Jesus's gift of the seven sacraments helps us to be saved beginning with baptism, which enters us into the work of salvation and enters us into the life of sanctifying grace. Sanctifying grace is the grace of eternal life in God. This is grace which we lose completely if we commit mortal sin, though it can be restored if we are truly sorry for our sins, go to confession, and do penance for them in repentance for them. Venial sin is not as serious, and although it does not cut us off from God's grace, it does hurt our relationship with Him. However, any time we commit sin, we put Jesus to death on the cross, too, because it wasn't only for the sins of the past that Jesus died, but for all our sins, too. He took on the full punishment for our sins. If we want to go to Heaven, we must join in Christ's work of salvation by being truly sorry for our sins, join in the works of mercy, and live the sacramental life of the Church. Jesus said we must be perfect as our Father in Heaven is perfect (Mt 5:48).

The greatest work of salvation in the Church is done in the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. The Eucharist is Jesus’ Body and Blood, the very real presence of Jesus, who is with us to be experienced when we go to Mass, to give us strength to love God when we can receive Him at Holy Communion, and to remain with us in adoration and prayer so He can be a part of our life at each moment. The Mass, which is the celebration of the Eucharist, is "offered" because at the Mass, it is Jesus who offers himself to the Father making present again his death and resurrection for our salvation. The Mass recalls and really joins us to the moment when Jesus suffered and died for us and rose from the dead. Then, he gives himself to us in Holy Communion that we may have eternal life. Therefore, it is the sacrament of our salvation.

What does this all mean for us? We need to do our best to pray to Jesus and invite Him to be a part of our life. We need to try to be like Jesus in our love for God and in how we treat each other. We need to be holy like God is holy, and live the sacramental life of the Church. We need to remember that knows what is best for us and because he loves us and wants us to experience the love He has for us, we should follow his Way to get there.

Being Catholic Christians, we know that the greatest gift that we have received is Jesus Christ. Jesus is the Son of God who both eternally loves God the Father and is eternally loved by God the Father. Being God, Jesus desires that everyone share in the love that He is. This gift of love is one that Jesus gives freely throughout human history, but is best seen in His time on earth and how He is with us today in the Church.

Questions:
What is the greatest gift we have received as Catholics?

What does salvation mean?
 

Why did Jesus die on the cross?
 

Activities:
1. As a family, share how Jesus has been a gift in your life, with each member in your family taking turns to talk about Jesus' blessing in your life.Talk about ways that you can share the presence of Jesus with others and proclaim His love to others.

2. Salvation comes from Jesus through the giving of His Body and Blood, His total self. Giving ourselves to others shows them that we love and respect them. Plan a way that you as a family can give yourself more intentionally to one another (i.e. eating dinner with no television or phones so you can share your day with one another with maximum focus).

Relates to Jesus: Jesus Christ is the One who brings about our salvation through His death and resurrection. The Eucharist both reminds us and represents Jesus' saving work at each Mass. This is another reason why going to weekly Mass is so extremely important.

Relates to my Faith: The Church exists in order for people to obtain the grace necessary for salvation. Receiving the Sacraments and being committed to prayer and lovingly serving others are taught to us through the Catholic Church and gives us the knowledge and strength to carry out this work in our life.

Sample Script:

We are blessed to have Jesus’ presence in the Church through the Sacrament of the Eucharist. The Eucharist is Jesus’ Body and Blood, the very real presence of Jesus, who is with us to be experienced when we go to Mass, to give us strength to love God when we can receive Him at Holy Communion, and to remain with us in adoration and prayer so He can be a part of our life at each moment. It is the desire of Jesus to be with all people so that our life might be connected to the love of God all of the time. God never wants us to be alone and it is such a gift that our faith teaches us to reach out for and invite God into our life at each moment so that we might be guided by His love and truth.

One of the many blessings that we have from Jesus’ presence in the Eucharist (and there are many!) is that the Eucharist is the Sacrament of our salvation. What does this mean? Jesus Christ's mission is always to speak the Word of God to all people at all times. Jesus’ Word is the Gospel message that proclaims the love of God and despite our rejection of God’s love due to sin, He seeks to be one with our life through Jesus and ultimately His Church. This oneness, this unity is achieved by Jesus’ saving action of dying and rising from the dead, winning for us our salvation by Jesus offering His Body and Blood in place of our own bodies for our sins. Jesus continually gives us His Body and Blood as a sacrifice on our behalf in the Eucharist at each Mass. This calls to mind the gift of salvation that Jesus won for us and invites us to participate in this gift in a very real way through our own life.

That is a lot for sure… For the purpose of this lesson, let us just take a look at the meaning of salvation. Salvation is the forgiveness of our sins which allows for the restoration of our relationship with God. You and I, just by ourselves, are not able to fully forgive ourselves of our own sins. God in His love for us knows this and sends His Son to take on our human flesh, while still remaining fully God, and offers our sins perfectly to God the Father, who is able to forgive sin fully. Here, our relationship to God is restored.

As we prepare to receive Jesus in the Eucharist, we are good to think about how Jesus wants to be with us always, He wants to laugh with you, and be happy with you, and cry with you, and feel sad with you. He loves us so much that He wants to always be remembered by you, asking us to go to Mass each Sunday so we can carry Jesus with us throughout our week. So, the salvation that Jesus offers us wasn’t just the Son obeying the Father and doing what He was supposed to do; rather it was Jesus loving us just as much as the Father and desiring that each person be saved from their sin. From this salvation, each person would have the chance to enter into a real relationship with God that is supported and strengthened by the Eucharistic presence of Jesus Christ in our everyday life. This relationship is both for the betterment of our lives here and now and most importantly, for our eternal lives in Heaven.

Questions:

How do we invite God everyday to be a part of our lives?

What is the Eucharist for Catholics?

How is one way we can carry Jesus with us throughout our week?

What did Jesus' death and resurrection give us?

Who is ultimately able to forgive all of our sins?

 

Activities:
1. Share as a family your experience with the Eucharist. Share your encounters of how your faith has deepened and how you rely on the Eucharist for your day-to-day living. Discuss why it is important to have this closeness with our Savior.

2. We all have times in our life when we need to say sorry. Share as a family your experience with the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Talk about your joys and struggles and why this practice of saying sorry to God is most important, giving us a model to practice and follow in saying sorry to our family and friends and those that we encounter.

Relates to Jesus: Jesus is our savior. By conquering death and leading us to life in the Spirit, Jesus is not just a historical character but rather is alive in all souls who authentically proclaim His name.

Relates to my Faith: Grace allows us to move and have our being. Grace is the fuel for the disciple, as it is this grace that allows one in thought, word, and deed to proclaim the Kerygma.

Sample Script:

When Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came to earth as a little baby on that first Christmas night, He came with a sacred mission to save all of humanity from their sins. God became man so that man might return to God. Jesus took on all of our humanity and experienced everything that you and I experience except for sin. But even sin He took onto Himself at His passion and death when He was crucified on the Cross. God is so in love with us that He offered His own Son to take our burden on so that we might have life in which we don’t have to bear this burden alone.

So Jesus’ death on that first Good Friday was Jesus offering all of our sins, those offenses or bad choices that hurt God and hurt others, to God the Father. Jesus, being fully God and fully man, was able to, in perfect love and intention, offer the Father the most pleasing act of sacrifice and contrition so that all of humanity is able to have right relationship restored with God. By Jesus offering this total gift of Himself He successfully destroyed sin and death and offers each and every one of us the chance to choose life with Jesus or to remain frozen in our life of sin.

Further, with Jesus’ resurrection from the dead and ascension into Heaven, He shows us the power of God to truly conquer all things, even death. Jesus shows us that humanity is made for relationship with God and that the power of sin and death cannot overcome the power of love and mercy that God has for all people. We are made for relationship with God and we are made to spend eternity with God in the presence of perfect love and harmony. The resurrection and the ascension show us our salvation is a gift from God that frees us from eternal death and rather allows us the chance to choose eternal life, participating in that reality now through life in the Church and sharing that life with all that we encounter.

When Jesus ascended into Heaven, He sent the Holy Spirit to remain with us. The Holy Spirit lives in the Catholic Church and operates in the world around us to assist us with living this life in relationship with the Holy Trinity. We know the Holy Spirit is most evident and present through the Sacraments of the Church, which provide us with actual grace to live in relationship with God and to live the life of being a child of God.

So the question becomes how do we live out this grace that was won for you and I by Jesus’ saving mission? We need to be regular receivers of the Eucharist which gives us the grace of Jesus’ presence within our very self (no better role model right?!?!) while also being regular with the Sacrament of Reconciliation for the times we do sin so that we can say sorry and restore our relationship with Jesus. We need to pray often, daily, as well and be regular readers of the Bible, so that we can talk to and listen to God and hear His mission for you and I.

Questions:

Jesus shows us that God truly can conquer all things even _____.

God sent us His only Son, Jesus, and when he ascended into heaven what did He send to remain with us?

The Eucharist gives us the grace of ______.

What did Jesus do on Good Friday that allows for all of humanity to have a right relationship with God?

Besides praying and receiving the Eucharist, what else should we do to restore our relationship with Jesus?
 

Activities:
1. Draw a picture of a time when you made a good choice, like when you chose to help someone, and describe how it made you feel and other good things that came from the situation. How did this situation allow you to see God or learn something about God?

2. With your family, think of one way that you could reach out to a family member or friend and offer words of kindness or support. Discuss how are attention towards others gives grace that allows God to be encountered in the lives of all involved.

Relates to Jesus: Jesus came to save us from our sins by dying on the Cross and thus opens for us the necessary grace to live life in Him.

Relates to my Faith: For our part, we need to cooperate with grace by following and living the Precepts of the Church so that grace remains fresh in us and guides us to salvation.

Sample Script:

God created us out of love and desires for us to live a life that is open to receive His love and to be people who reflect His love to others in our daily interactions with each other. We are each individually created by the love of God and we are created to be with God forever. The love He has for us is meant to sustain us throughout this life and ultimately bring us back home to Him when we die.

Unfortunately, it isn’t that easy. Sin entered the world through the Original Sin of Adam and Eve. This disobedience of God and ultimate rejection of His love brought about many consequences. Most notable of the consequences is that a separation from the love of God by sin yields the fruit of death, which is seen in the separation of the body from the soul when we experience our physical death. However, sin also yields the fruit of a spiritual death, in which our relationship with God is damaged or destroyed and the order that should exist between our body and soul is thrown into disorder, with our body seeking base passions apart from sound reason, etc.

So, we need a savior to bring us back from our sinfulness and into right relationship with God. Jesus Christ, in Him taking on our flesh and sacrificing Himself through the Paschal Mystery (which is to say, through His suffering or passion, His death on the Cross, and His resurrection three days later from the tomb) saves us from our sins and brings us the opportunity, if we choose it, for new life found in living in right relationship with God. To put another way, Jesus overcomes and conquers sin and death through His dying and rising and restores the order that was lost due to sin and allows harmony to exist again between God and man and between man’s physical and spiritual self.

This grace of new life that is offered us through the saving action of Jesus Christ has a lot to say for our daily lives. It allows us to truly seek the desire that we all have to be full, to be happy, to be complete. This desire we realize is fulfilled by love, which is found fully in God alone, and so a life of holiness that pursues this pearl of great price (cf. Matthew 13:45-46) becomes all the more pursuable due to God’s love for us in the gift of His Son Jesus Christ. By keeping our eyes, mind, and heart fixed on Jesus, living the life of grace won for us, we walk the path of life as a disciple of Jesus and our brought to new life, to life that is full!

The grace that we speak of identified in two forms. Sanctifying grace is the habitual grace that we receive supernaturally, seen evidently in the Sacraments, especially in Baptism and Reconciliation, as this grace heals our broken human nature due to sin and restores us in our friendship and relationship with God. Actual grace is the grace received from God’s interventions throughout our life, like at the moment of conversion or reversion to the faith, and are the daily helps to assist us on our journey towards holiness. We should follow the role models we have in our life of faith and praise God for the gift of grace given to such souls (Saints are a great example, holy people in our family or who we see at Church).

Questions:

Sin yields what two types of death ultimately?

What is the difference between sanctifying grace and actual grace?

To what did Jesus' dying and rising bring harmony?

Is anyone free from sin?

What does God's love give us in this world?

 

Activities:
1. Together as a family, discuss how our bad choices and sins affect us and others around us negatively. Conversely, hold a similar discussion in regards to our good choices and how these affect us and others around us positively. Put these answers and any points shared on a chart that can be referred to from time to time.

2. Think of your brother/sister or classmate or neighbor friend, some one that you are close to. Write down 5 ways that you can be an example of Jesus Christ for him/her and how these actions show God's love for the other.

Relates to Jesus: Jesus desires to be with us at all times and the grace of God that He gives provides us with participation in divine life.

Relates to my Faith: The Catholic Church is the storehouse of grace which provides the faithful with the necessary strength and inspiration to strive towards holiness and fulfillment.

Sample Script:

Grace is always a gift of God’s blessing and presence among us. The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines grace as “the free and undeserved gift that God gives us to respond to our vocation to become his adopted children”. This gift that God gives provides you and me with greater clarity and allows us to carry on our path to be the holy daughters and sons that God has called us to be with strength.

Looking at sanctifying grace, which again from the Catechism; “God shares his divine life and friendship with us in a habitual gift, a stable and supernatural disposition that enables the soul to live with God, to act by his love”. Sanctifying grace keeps us in the loving care of God. Here, we actually experience the life that He desires all humans to share, living in friendship with God and being united in His love. It is interesting here to talk about the Church’s use of the word “stable” in regards to Sanctifying Grace. God Himself is unchanging, meaning that His love for us never moves (up one minute, not really into us the next - no) and is thus always stable. His love is something that is always there for us no matter what. It is you and I who change, who make decisions one way or the other to accept or reject God’s love.

A wonderful example of sanctifying grace is seen through the Sacraments for salvation. When we are baptized, we receive sanctifying grace that annihilates the stain of Original Sin on our soul and we become sealed with the indelible or unerasable mark being a son or daughter of God. Baptism provides us the necessary grace to receive and remain in relationship with God. Another example here is seen in the Eucharist, as the Eucharist sustains us in our relationship with God through the reception of His Son Jesus. Here, we find the import of attending Mass with attention and to have our souls as prepared as possible to receive Jesus in this graced sacrament of the Eucharist.

In considering actual grace, the Catechism states that “God gives us the help to conform our lives to his will”. Actual grace accounts for the daily and more frequent gifts from God that keep us aware of His presence and provide us with certain strength to choose Him over the many things vying for our attention. Actual graces reminds us that the God of love isn’t far away watching us on His throne; rather He is closely and attentively involved in our lives, eager to walk with you through your life, just like a good friend or trusted loved one.

By coming to know and understand the life of grace in and around us, we can learn that grace seeks to keep us away from sin and to assist us in growing in holiness. We need both Sanctifying and Actual Grace to achieve our goal of living a holy, fulfilled life that ends with us spending eternity in the life and love of God. To accomplish this, we must take serious the life we lead and attend to our attention to the Sacraments of the Eucharist and Reconciliation, we must be people who attend weekly Sunday Mass and pray, we must lovingly attend to the needs of our brothers and sisters that we encounter, we must detach and root out anything that is sinful or that brings us to sin. Grace will be given us to help us, to keep us, and to guide us to relationship with the Holy Trinity.

Questions:

What is actual grace?

What is sanctifying grace?

Why is grace bestowed on us?

Does God's love for us ever change based on how we live our life? 

What is God's promise of salvation?
 

Activities:
1. As a family, plan a day in which you all can go to the Sacrament of Reconciliation. On the way home, discuss how grace has been restored in your life and share ways that you can help to keep grace active in your life.

2. Consider the stories of some of your favorite Saints. What about these men and women made them holy? What are some things that they practiced that you could practice in your life in order to grow in holiness and thus closer to God?

Relates to Jesus: Jesus restores and strengthens us in grace through the Sacraments. Especially in the Eucharist, we encounter Jesus face-to-face and receive what we need to be holy.

Relates to my Faith: The Catholic Church teaches that grace is a gift given that we can either receive or reject. In receiving grace, we grow in faith and thus closer to God in relationship. In rejecting grace, we follow our own path and move further away from God and His friendship.

Sample Script:

Salvation is a gift that is offered to humanity through God's endless and eternal love for His people. Offering His Son, Jesus Christ, to take on our sins whom willfully sacrificed Himself so that we might be restored in union with the Father, we see in Jesus not just a Savior working isolated in a moment in time. Rather, Jesus takes on our human flesh and lives life like you and I and gives us the perfect example of how to faithfully live and follow the Christian life.

In order for you and I to be the son or daughter God has intended us to be, we need to live lives that are holy. For you and I to be holy, we need to realize a couple of things. God calls every single person who has ever been created to be holy. So since God is calling you and I to be holy, we know that He is giving us the necessary tools that we need in order to finish the job. We can’t say things like holiness isn’t for me or I can’t be holy like Mother Teresa. Holiness is for all of us and while it may be true you can’t be the next Mother Teresa that is only because God gave you a different call then her so that you can live holiness as He is calling you. You and I need to come to understand the different tools that God gave us in order to live out properly the vocation to holiness in our own life. While sometimes it can be quite evident what God has given to us, other times our tools and gifts get hidden, requiring us to do some exploring and discovering.

So again, living out a holy life is living a divine life that is in friendship with God and offers a living witness of His loving presence for the entire world to see. We begin to live our call to holiness by coming to know God. Time and again the most consistent way to come to know God is through our worship and prayer of God. One reason our Mass is set-up the way that it is is so that we can experience and encounter God in a number of different ways. We call out to Him asking for forgiveness for our sins, we hear His word in the readings from Scripture and in the singing of the Psalm, we come to know more about God in my life and in the lives of others through the homily, we encounter the reality of Jesus Christ present in the Eucharist in His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity, we offer our prayers of petition and thanksgiving which call out to God about the events of our life, thanking Him for the gift of salvation, and so on. God speaks to us through worship, inspiring our hearts and minds to continue to offer Him more of ourselves so that we might grow closer to Him. Our worship reaches a climax as we receive Jesus in the Eucharist and encounter grace Himself, inspiring us to live lives after His model.

However, we must do our part to hold onto the grace that we received and to continue the practice of maintaining and building up this grace through worship and prayer and study of Scripture and lovingly serving each other. When we act in such a holy way, we keep at bay the evil powers that seek to steal grace from us and detour us from living a life of grace by following a life of sin. By giving into sin and living in a state of sin (continually giving into a particular sin and living with this unrepented sin), we lose sanctifying grace and become blind to actual grace, choosing death over and against life. Here, our friendship with God is destroyed, choosing against love and wanting to live a life alone apart from God. Jesus' victory on the Cross is ignored and we turn away from life-filling love, choosing selfish self-centered love that pulls us away from salvation.

This is the devastation of sin and there is no one sadder about this loss other than God. Thanks be to God, all is not hopelessly lost so long as we have breath in our lungs and are able to choose God and turn away from our sin. Jesus Christ came to seek and save that which was lost, namely our own sinful selves. Through His saving action of dying and rising and the sending of the Holy Spirit to be with the Church, the Sacrament of Reconciliation is given to us sinners to repent of our sinfulness, restore our relationship with God, and convert our ways onto Him. With the Sacrament of Reconciliation we receive the gift of Sanctifying Grace and rejoin the journey of a life seeking holiness, walking in community with the Lord, and Mother Mary, and the Saints, and those holy people in our lives who are seeking to be just like Jesus Christ, loving God and loving neighbor in all that they think, say, and do.

Questions:

What is a consistent way to get to know God?

What is God calling us each to be?

Does God provide anything for us to be what He calls us to be?

How do we hold onto the grace that God gives us?

How is our friendship with God destroyed?

Activities:
1. Write down a number of things that you recognize as good, holy characteristics that you see in your family and friends. What do you admire about these traits? What are some traits that you have? Are there any traits you see in others that you would like to practice and take on?

2. Interview your mom/dad/grandma/grandpa/close family member about their favorite character from the Bible or Saint in the Catholic Church. What about this favorite inspires them to be Catholic? How does this holy woman or man draw them closer to Jesus Christ and His Church?

Relates to Jesus: Jesus shows us the value and meaning of suffering. By staying close to Jesus Christ, allowing Him to walk with us in our suffering, we find grace for ourselves and for others.

Relates to my Faith: The grace of the Crucifixion is available through the Catholic Church, given to the faithful through the Sacraments so that we might experience the divine life of God which leads us to salvation.

Sample Script:

There is a common misconception within some Catholic and Christian circles that would lead one to think that living life as a disciple of Jesus Christ is easy. While it is true that a great many blessings and graces flow and are present daily in the life of a Catholic Christian, not to mention tremendous happiness and fulfillment, life can still be tough. Pain and suffering will come in this life, whether you are Christian or not. But yet another grace of being a Christian in the Catholic Church is we are given great assurance that our suffering and struggles can carry with them a great many blessings. Jesus Christ is our great witness here, as He to save us from our sins, showed us the power of His salvific or saving grace by willingly offering Himself along with our sins and suffering to the Father He saved us and opened wide the doors to our redemption. Faith in our Savior is thus the beginning step in finding authentic meaning in this life and to finding fulfillment as a disciple.

Jesus is clear about the conditions to be His disciple: in Mark 8:34 “He summoned the crowd with his disciples and said  to them, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me”. If we are to model our lives after Jesus’, we are called to take up our cross. The salvation that God offers from the Cross is the divine life of grace that allows us to do just as Jesus does, only in our own particular situation. Our cross are those burdens, struggles, and sins that way us down and make the journey towards holiness and life with God difficult. However, it is even in our struggles and sufferings that, in choosing to follow Jesus Christ, that we feel His arm wrap around our shoulders and walk with us in carrying these burdens. That provides us with a tremendous sense of hope and encouragement that nothing in this life is wasted. Jesus truly wants to be a part of your life, including your sins and pain and temptations; God wants it all! He died for you so that you might have life and have life to the full, so carrying our cross with Jesus continues our model of becoming a disciple after the Son of God.

So you might be thinking that it is nice to model our self after Jesus by carrying our cross and to say things like “lift it up”, but what does this uniting our sufferings with Jesus really look like? When we encounter suffering in our life, our first reaction should be to turn to Jesus in prayer and talk to Him about it. What is this about? Why me? What could this mean for my future? These and many more questions will arise, but bringing these to Jesus and offering these to Him in prayer gives us a chance to release what is on heart to the One who can do something about it. While we might not get answers or the results that we expect, with patience and perseverance, we can offer all that we carry to God just as Jesus did on the Cross for ourselves and others, so that what we endure with Jesus by our side might win grace to another in need of life and hope.

Our life as disciples of Jesus Christ is truly best seen in us when we seek to be one with Jesus by offering our sufferings for the sake of others. When the work of salvation is evident in our life, we proclaim to one another the reality of grace that reminds us to offer our lives to our Savior. Jesus does this for us freely and when we take on this role of offering, we become priest and mediator; not in any self-centered way but as the disciple who is carrying out the work of discipleship so that the name of Jesus Christ may be praised and that the people of the world who do not know Him yet may come to believe that He is the Messiah.

What does this all mean for us? The way of the disciple of Jesus Christ consists of truly the full range of experiences that life has to offer; good times, bad times, and every time in between. The difference is for the Catholic Christian is that we have the grace of God actively available to us through the Sacraments and through our daily life of prayer and service, to name just a couple examples. This grace keeps us and helps us to maintain the Christian way of life as a disciple seeking to be holy and remain in friendship with God. Even when life gets tough, and we get burdened with struggles and perhaps even get burdened with our sins, we know Jesus never leaves us alone. We can offer our struggles and sins to Jesus and He walks with us to offer these to the Father. By offering our sufferings for our self or those that we know are in need, we witness to the saving action of Jesus on the Cross and show the reality that not one moment of our life is wasted in the work of His salvation. God’s grace desires to be a part of our life, and the life of discipleship affords such opportunities for souls to encounter this gift.

Questions:

What are some of the things in your life that make it so hard to live the life of a disciple of Christ? 

List at least four things that you can do to help you become a better disciple of Christ so that you can show greater love to others.

Does God always give us the answer we pray for?

How does God's grace show up in our life?

Where do we start to find meaning in life?

 

Activities:
1. Being a disciple of Jesus Christ looks a certain way and includes a prayer life, participation in the Sacraments, serving others through charitable works of mercy, etc. On a sheet of paper, write down how you practice being a disciple. What do you do well? What could you work on?

2. Devise a plan with your family to keep the practice of discipleship centralized within your life together. For example, consider one thing that you and your family can do together daily for a month in order to keep Jesus intentionally centered in your life and the life of your family. Each month, choose something different in order to both practice and grow in your discipleship.

Relates to Jesus: Jesus' faith in the will of God the Father modeled for all that obedient trust in the Love of loves is the foundation for living and participating in the life of grace.

Relates to my Faith: Faith, a gift first received at baptism and nurtured through Sacraments and prayer, allows us to witness to the truth that our physical life is merely a first step in the eternal journey we are called to prepare and live for.

Sample Script:

Our Catholic belief in Jesus Christ is not just a part of our life; it is the central belief at the center of our life that guides and directs every decision. Knowing that Jesus offers us the grace to live fully and to have happiness in our life beyond anything else necessitates that He has sole possession of our heart. His salvific work on the Cross that won our salvation came as His selfless love for the will of the Father to bring His children back into "good graces" so that you and I might be close to God. Jesus has to be our everything or we are not doing it right. Our discipleship here is still in need of growth and development, requiring and allowing grace to continue to lead our life so as to increase our faith.

Faith is certainly important and central in the life of the disciple, as this faith goes hand and hand with Jesus Christ, the one that we have faith in. There are many different characteristics about faith that play into the life of being a disciple. These help us to understand faith for the gift that it is and for the need that we each have for it in our life. It is important to note that our life as a disciple is one that takes a lifetime to develop, and even when we stumble and fall, we can have confidence in the grace of Jesus Christ to bring us back into relationship with God if we are so willing. Again, Jesus' loving gift of Himself on the Cross that saves us yields the grace that we seek in faith to be His disciples. And as disciples, we should try to grow in faith a little more each day and do our best to guard and protect this gift by being centered in Jesus Christ and His Church.

We can speak of faith as both a divine act and a human act. Faith is first a gift from God, being one of the theological virtues, and serves the soul by allowing you and I to place our belief in Him that is unseen. You and I give our personal “yes” to God’s invitation of faith, saying with our own will that I agree with and believe in the truth that is God. The gift of faith is truly a gift in that it is something that we receive before we understand and calls to something, rather Someone, who is outside our reason in full, since He is the author of reason and we are blessed to participate in the gift of reason. Faith is necessary for salvation for faith reminds us that this life and certainly the life to come cannot be voyaged on by ourselves. Jesus is the one who won for us our salvation and opened our life to grace, so in faith we are called to assent to the God of love who orchestrated our salvation.

Faith also requires perseverance, sacrifice, and commitment to be loved whole-heartedly. Faith does not always yield knowledge or even feelings that God is present with you. It can sometimes feel like we are walking blindly or even staring into the darkness of our soul only to find that no one is there. Faith demands an unwavering trust in the God who loves us, for even though we might feel alone and experience darkness when we call God’s name, we know by faith, by the Church’s teachings, by the lives of the Saints, by our own interior or internal inkling that God is there in the quiet, in the hidden, in the peaceful loving and caring for us with a deep and profound intimacy that is far beyond anything we can think of.

For you and me, we need to stay close to Jesus and His Church. Mass, the Bible, prayer, the Sacraments, Adoration, Works of Service; these and much more keep us close in learning about Jesus and the Church and allow us to grow in faith as we God at work with and among His people. Our relationship with God grows our capacity and commitment in faith and helps us to witness more truthfully to the realities of faith. With courage, you and I can allow our foundation in faith to penetrate our very thoughts, words, and deeds so that we can take up Jesus’ mission of proclaiming the Kingdom of God to all we meet, sometimes even without saying a word. This lived reality of faith in our life gives glory to God and affords us the life that we all seek; one filled with fulfillment and happiness.

Questions:
What is the difference between making Jesus a part of one's life and putting Jesus at the center of our life? How does it change our thinking? How does it change our priorities? How does it affect our relationships with other people, like the friends we choose?

Faith is a gift, but it is also a theological virtue and virtues can be strengthened. What are some ways we can strengthen our faith?

What does faith give each of us?

 

Activities:
1. Set aside some intentional time (at least 30 minutes) to offer to Jesus and ask Him questions to come to know Him and your relationship with Him more deeply. Who are you Jesus? What does it mean that you are my Savior? Why is it hard to follow you some things? These and other questions that the Holy Spirit inspires you to ask should be asked, listened to, and make sure to write down anything that comes to mind.

2. As a family, discuss what faith means. What does it mean to have faith? What does faith look like? Why is it important to have faith? How do we deal when we feel weak in our faith or when we feel we have lost faith? Write down your answers and any insights that come forward.

Extra Material (For Deeper Study)
 

Relates to Jesus: Jesus is our savior. By his passion and death, we are redeemed, that is, we are reconciled to God after the sin of Adam and Eve separated us from him. His death opens the possibility of salvation for us.

Relates to Faith: Although Jesus redeemed me and is the means of my salvation, he teaches us in the Gospels that I must not only be baptized, but respond positively and with obedient action to God’s grace if I hope to actually attain salvation.  

Catechism References: Nos. 599-623;1257; 1262; 1332; 1337; 1340; 1392-1393; 1987-2005

Scriptural References: Mt 1:21; 5:20; 7:13-14; 16:25; 18:4; Mt 24:13; Mt 25:31-46; Mk 8:35; 10:45; 10:52; 16:16; Lk 19:10; Jn  3:4; 3:16-17; 6:47-58; 10:9; Acts 2:21; 4:12; 13:47; 16:31; Rom 1:16; 3:23-24; 5:12; 10:10; 1 Cor 15:22; Eph 2:4-5; 2:8-9; Tim 1:9; Titus 2:11-12; Heb 9:28; Jas 2:14-26; 1 Jn 1:7,9; 2:2-6,11; 3:5; 5:1-12 

Extra Narrative

As with many Catholic terms that Catholics often use imprecisely, the words, “salvation”  and “grace”, are both technical in nature. When we talk about the love of Christ, we hardly think in terms of technical accuracy and fail to see any connection between the two, but the lack of imprecision in terms like these have been the cause of most of the division in the Church through history, and division is usually the cause of hate and strife. This is why Christ set the Church up with an apostolic teaching authority and the Holy Spirit to guide it as the source of unity among mankind. So, it is important that we understand the terms we use. 

A classic example of this imprecision which has gotten us into trouble are the terms, salvation, justification, and redemption. We tend to use these terms interchangeably, and we use them so imprecisely that they have been the cause of needless division and misunderstanding between Catholics and Protestants and among Protestants for 500 years. It was not until 1999 that the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (PCPCU) wrote a Joint Statement agreed to by the Lutheran Church and many other Christian churches agreeing to the meaning of justification which settled the disagreement on the subject, thus helping to pave the way for greater Christian unity, a unity for which Christ prayed the night of the Last Supper before it even became an issue! 

So, let’s explore these terms first, and then come back to the term, grace.

Salvation: Not to be confused with “redemption” or “justification”. Salvation is a process concerning those “redeemed” (in a sense, bought and paid for) and “justified” by the blood of Christ through his suffering and death, i.e. the baptized or those desiring it. It is both doing what Christ commanded of us throughout the Gospels and avoiding sin. Salvation is the work of Christ and the Holy Spirit within us, but requires our cooperation and effort (i.e., merit). It is a joint effort between God and us and already takes into account redemption (the work of Christ alone) and justification (the work of Christ’s saving grace through baptism and reconciliation). God offers us the grace to do good and avoid evil. When we talk about salvation, we have to take into account our acceptance and cooperation of that grace.  The “merit” that we obtain by doing our part in cooperating with God’s grace is not a merit in the sense that binds God in some sort of spiritual contract in which he is obliged to reward us, but rather it is his desire that we “pick up our cross and follow (him)”. St. Paul says of this, “I make up in my flesh, the sufferings lacking in the cross of Christ”. Grace and merit are always freely given by God without any obligation on his part. 

Redemption: The moment when the work of Jesus Christ’s reconciliation of mankind to God was completed by his obedient suffering, death on the cross, and resurrection from the dead. It is the moment when Jesus reverses the sin of Adam (Original Sin) that separated us from God. Redemption opens the way to our salvation. It does not guarantee it. However, this moment is an eternal one in which, we, as baptized members of the mystical Body of Christ, the Church, also participate in the work of Christ’s redemption. We are its benefactors, and it applies to all mankind. Only Jesus can take the glory for the work of redemption, but salvation is a joint effort of grace offered by Christ and received and acted upon by us. So, if we were ever to find ourselves as Catholics being asked by a non-Catholic if we have been saved, the theologically correct answer from a Catholic perspective is, “Do you mean, have I been redeemed, then yes. If you mean “saved”, then, my answer is, “I’m working on it and by the grace of God, I will be.”  If you are baptized, are in the state of grace (i.e., not in mortal sin), and you really want to get nerdy, you can also answer, “Do you mean have I been justified? Then, the answer is yes, but, with the help of God’s grace, I’m still working on my salvation.” All are redeemed, but not all are justified and saved. 

Justification: If Jesus’ work on the cross opens the way to salvation, and redemption is the work of Christ’s suffering, death, and resurrection that reconciled us to God after being separated by Original Sin, then justification is redemption actuated in the sacrament of baptism or re-actuated in the sacrament of reconciliation after falling victim to mortal sin. Justification is a mechanism for both redemption and salvation. At baptism (and after baptism, through the sacrament of reconciliation), our redemption is made actual by the grace of justification, which is also the work of Christ, but requires our will to accept it. The moment we receive the graces of baptism or reconciliation after baptism if we had mortal sin, then we are also saved, but it is not “once saved, always saved”. Salvation is an ongoing work until we pass from this life. In theory, justification happens once when we are baptized, but because most of us will fall into mortal sin at various points in our lives, those of us who are Cathlolic are justified again when we are reconciled to God in the sacrament of reconciliation. We will not “know” if we are saved, until we are in Heaven or at least in Purgatory. (Remember, those in Purgatory are also saved, but they have not completed the atonement arising from the temporal punishment due to sin.)   

Let us now focus on other aspects of salvation. We have already considered that Jesus is our redeemer and our savior. That he brought about our redemption through the work of his passion, death, and resurrection. It is by this work and by his grace that we are justified. The grace of our redemption is freely given and not earned. The graces of justification and salvation are likewise freely given, but require our cooperation, acceptance, and action. When we act upon God’s grace, then we earn merit, but our merits do not obligate God to the rewards of Heaven, but are also freely given out of his love for us.

The Eucharist is not only Christ’s presence among us, but in the Divine Liturgy, that is, the Mass, we again encounter Christ’s saving grace. It is, therefore, the sacrament of our salvation because in his presence therein, we encounter and commune with our Savior, and in the Mass, we participate in his work of redemption (i.e., the eternal moment, as it were), through the three-fold office of our baptism as “priests, prophets, and kings”. This priestly office is real inasmuch as we are members of the Mystical Body of Christ. This is not merely the symbolic language of Church, but in our baptism, are joined to the Body of Christ in all his priestly work. The Eucharist makes eternally present to the Father, the obedient and willing sacrifice of the Son, therefore makes our redemption eternally present before the Father. Just as the Father asked Abraham if he were willing to sacrifice his son, Isaac, as a test not only of Abraham’s personal faith, but almost as a test to see if mankind was worthy of God sending us his Son. It’s a good thing he passed.

As we mentioned above, it is Christ’s passion, death and resurrection that redeems and justifies us, but it also provides the grace which saves us and makes the work of our salvation efficacious. It is through Jesus’ gift of the Holy Spirit, which the new Church received at Pentecost, that the work of salvation can begin in earnest. For it is through the Spirit that the grace of God comes to us. 

We must also understand that the theological virtue of faith is a prerequisite of both justification and salvation. We are reminded here of the faith of Abraham, “our father in faith” who was justified by faith.  Faith is both a divine and human act inasmuch as it is not possible to have faith unless it is offered as a gift by God and accepted by us. This is why it is a theological virtue. It is a habit that must be practiced and persevered in, if we are to be saved. The grace of faith flows from the Church through our baptism and is always referenced in relation to Christ because he is its source. Now let us discuss grace.

First of all, all grace flows from the Father, through the Son, and through the Holy Spirit to us. Again, if it is Christ’s passion, death, and resurrection that makes our reception of grace possible. When the Church talks about grace, it does so in two ways. First, in terms of the graces of redemption, justification, and salvation. We call this grace, sanctifying grace. It is the grace which is our spiritual union with God. It is the grace won by the redeeming love of Christ on the cross that reversed the sin of Adam, reconciled mankind to the Father, and is initiated by baptism (either the sacrament received or the sacrament desired). Sanctifying grace is our lifeline to salvation and keeps us in a state of grace. It enables us to participate in the true worship of God the Father that occurs in the Mass, and the work of redemption and salvation therein. That is to say, anyone can attend Mass, but only those who are baptized and in a state of grace (sanctifying grace) can, that is, are able to, worship--in the truest technical sense of that word--as part of the Body of Christ joined to Christ the Head in the person of the priest. 

The second way in which the Church talks about grace is in terms of actual grace. Actual grace is that grace which invites us to “do good and avoid evil”. Acts of kindness or goodness that we are moved to do, spiritual sacrifices that we are moved to make, evil that we are tempted by that we are moved to avoid, prayer that we are moved to say, sacraments that we are moved to use rightly are all examples of actual grace. Actual grace can be understood in terms of “helps” or “aids” which assist us along the path of salvation. That is to say, actual grace is also necessary to do the work commanded us by Christ in order to be saved. 

To conclude, let us look at grace in action. Because of Christ’s passion, death, and resurrection, I have been redeemed and salvation is possible. Once I have been baptized, if as an infant, then through the faith of my parents, I have been justified and I am now in a state of sanctifying grace. If I was an adult, never baptized, and was moved to become baptized, I was not in a state of grace prior to my baptism, but actual grace moved me to become baptized through the grace of faith. But over time, either as I have grown to the age of reason or by bad decisions as a person able to fully see right from wrong, I have fallen into mortal sin. I have now cut myself off from sanctifying grace and I am no longer united to God having separated myself from him through my own sinful decision(s). I have thus lost all my merits and blessings. They now mean nothing were I to die in this state. But thanks to Christ’s sacrifice, actual grace has moved me to true contrition--genuine sorrow for sin because I have offended God and not because I am feeling sorry for myself for doing wrong--and go to sacramental confession. Then, having made a good confession, or in lieu of that, having at least made a perfect act of contrition with the intention of going to sacramental confession at my earliest opportunity, God has restored me in right relationship to himself, and thus I am again in the state of sanctifying grace united with the Holy Trinity, and all my merits and graces are restored.