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In this clip, Cy Kellett welcomes Tim Staples to discuss the necessity of baptism for salvation. Trent continues with details on how Jesus and the apostles emphasized baptism as essential, backed by scripture. Tune in to explore this critical aspect of Christian faith!
Transcript:
Caller: If Jesus death on the cross was not sufficient for the sins of the whole world, it was, brother. So why are you trying to add baptism, Jesus, except you&#8217;re born again, I cannot see the kingdom of God now. In Acts chapter 8, Philip was preaching to the Ethiopian eunuch. And the Ethiopian saw water and said, see, here is water. What does hinder be baptized? And Philip said, do you believe Jesus Christ, the Son of God? He said, yes, I believe it was only after his profession that he was allowed to be baptized. You cannot add baptism to salvation.
Tim Staples: Okay, let me jump in right here, because you&#8217;re going to start going off on a lot of different things. Let&#8217;s answer what you&#8217;ve said so far, okay? Number one, the reason why baptism is necessary for salvation is because Jesus says so. For example, in Mark 16:16, Jesus says, He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved. We&#8217;re not saying faith isn&#8217;t necessary. Absolutely it is. But so is baptism. This is why first Peter 3:21, St. Peter would say, baptism does now save us. And he had just said in verse 20, just as the water saved eight souls at the time of Noah, so baptism does now save you. And we also have verses like Romans 6:3, we are buried together with him through baptism, so that as Christ was raised to newness of life, we may walk in newness of life. We have in Acts 2:37,38, when the people after Peter preached masterfully on Pentecost, Jesus Christ, they said, what must we do? He said, repent and be baptized, each one of you, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, for the remission of your sins sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. I could multiply examples here, but I want to get to your second question, and that is, why infants? Well, in verse 39, and you have to understand, my brother, that we&#8217;re not adding anything to what Jesus did on the cross. Jesus is, according to 1 John 2:1:2. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not only our sins, but the sins of the whole world. Jesus is our salvation. However, Jesus can choose to communicate the graces of his salvific death to us in any way he so chooses. And he chose to use faith as an instrument, obedience as an instrument, as well as baptism and other sacraments. But right now we&#8217;re talking about baptism. And when it comes to infant baptism, it&#8217;s interesting, isn&#8217;t it, how St. Paul uses circumcision as sort of the image of what baptism is in Colossians 2, verses 11 and 12. He says, Baptism is the circumcision of Christ. Now we know that a Jew became a Jew and part of the covenant family of God through circumcision on the eighth day. Now, they didn&#8217;t have to accept Moses as their personal Lord or their personal prophet, I should say, because he wasn&#8217;t Lord, their personal prophet before they were circumcised. No, they understood a family covenant that a head of the household had authority to have his children circumcised on the eighth day. It&#8217;s interesting. Paul says baptism is the circumcision of Christ. Well, if circumcision was done to infants, how much more would baptism? Because circumcision didn&#8217;t take away sins. It was only a symbol that symbolized the coming of a sacrament that in fact would take away our sins and save us faith and baptism. Mark 16:16, as we said. So it&#8217;s the circumcision of Christ, says St. Paul. And this is why it&#8217;s so significant that Peter would say to a group of thousands of Jews who were listening to him when he proclaimed the truth of Jesus Christ. And they said, what must we do? As I said before, he said, repent. Be baptized, each one of you, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, for the remission of your sins. And you sh. Receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. But then he says in verse 39, and this promise is for you and for your children. Every Jew listening would have understood what that meant, that it is for our children, just as circumcision was. And this is why St. Paul would again and again use the image of circumcision when he&#8217;s talking about baptism. For example, in Romans 3:27, he says, we are baptized into Jesus Christ, where there is no longer Jew nor Greek bond, nor free male nor female. Notice he uses the image of circumcision. Why? Because you had to be a free male Jew to be circumcised. Paul is saying, now we have baptism, which is the fulfillment of circumcision, and it&#8217;s open to everyone. So baptism of infants. Absolutely. But please understand, when we say baptism is necessary for salvation, we understand that we have examples like of the thief on the cross who could not be baptized. He&#8217;s hanging on the cross. We believe that if you do not have access to and cannot be baptized by your desire for truth for Jesus Christ, you will receive the grace of that sacrament. Because God is not bound by the sacraments. You and I are. We have to follow God. He tells us we have to be baptized for salvation, we have to do that. But God himself can save people in extraordinary ways, as he did the thief on the cross, as he did with Cornelius, for example, in Acts, chapter 10. But at any rate, that&#8217;s just a scratch on the scratch of the surface, but I hope that helps.
Host: Richard, any follow up, quick comment on that? We&#8217;re getting really short on time, but we wanted to, you know, be fair to you. And what Tim just said the whole time,
Caller: it&#8217;s a lie, folks. Don&#8217;t listen to this bozo!
Host: Oh, okay. Well, all right. Richard, Richard, hold on. If we&#8217;re listening to a bozo, the bozo&#8217;s names are Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, Peter, and those who wrote the Scriptures. Richard, brother, you&#8217;re just. Your ears are not open, my friend, and that&#8217;s unfortunate. You have been lied to, and I don&#8217;t say that with any animosity or anything. We&#8217;re going to pray for you, Richard. Tim is a convert to the Catholic faith. And that conversion came through, I&#8217;m sure, great study and sacrifice and probably be a lot of heartache and sorrow. And I don&#8217;t know that he could throw any more scripture verses at you that support what he was just saying.
Tim Staples: Well, you know what, Jerry? If I could, I would say I can really relate to Richard because I was raised a Southern Baptist. I used to preach what he&#8217;s saying from the pulpit, and I really understand where he&#8217;s coming from. I would only ask Richard, check out our website@catholic.com in fact, I&#8217;ll give you an invitation to check out my website@timstaples.com and you can talk to me. Personally, I&#8217;d love to hear from you and talk a whole lot more scripture, but we do have to move on to some other callers. Thanks so much, though, for calling in, Richard, and God bless you.

Angry Caller Thinks Baptism is Pointless…

<div>Should we confess﻿ not doing enough against abortion?</div><div>I do not think you should confess this unless there was a particular, individual instance at least when you did not do what you could. This should be concrete, not general. Otherwise, we could get ourselves into a state about all the evils that we are not doing enough to stop. All of us could do more for world peace or for the family or for the poor and so on, but there is not clearly a sin unless we refuse an opportunity where in justice we should have acted concretely in our own circumstances.
So, for example, if you hear some coworkers discussing whether one of them should have an abortion, and you do not say anything to encourage the protection of life, then you certainly should confess that; but if you have not volunteered for the local pro-life ministry when you could, it is not necessarily a sin if you have other good works you are doing.
</div>

Not Opposing Abortion Forcefully Enough

As a Catholic, it’s not hard to find Protestants who say my religion teaches a false gospel, and so it isn’t even Christian. But these Protestants shoot themselves in the foot, because they can’t even answer the question “What is the gospel?” in a way that doesn’t undermine their own argument.
The word “gospel” comes from the Greek word euaggelion, literally “good news.” But in almost every case, the word is used in Scripture without any explanation of what the good news is about.
Matthew refers to the good news of the kingdom or the good news being preached (4:23, 9:35). Mark describes Jesus speaking of the good news or the good news of God (1:14-15). Luke shows Jesus preaching good news for the poor (4:18). And these passages also point back to verses in Isaiah proclaiming the good news of God’s victory over his enemies (52:7, 61:1).
We know that the gospel was preached during Christ’s ministry, but what was initially preached was not a message about Christ’s death, his resurrection, or how he would redeem humanity from sin. At this time, the gospel was just the good news that God’s kingdom was entering the world and that things would finally be set right.
After Christ’s resurrection, we find some passages in Paul’s letters that are closer to a definition of the gospel as we know it today. Romans 1:16 says the gospel is “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.” In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul says, “I would remind you, brethren, in what terms I preached to you the gospel [or the good news], which you received, in which you stand, by which you are saved, if you hold it fast—unless you believed in vain.
Paul then describes this good news through what many scholars identify as an early creed that was formulated just a few years after Christ’s crucifixion. It says Christ died for our sins, was buried, rose three days later, and appeared to numerous people, including Paul.
Notice there is no description of the gospel being about our individual salvation from damnable sin, even though that is how the gospel is often summarized. Instead, the gospel is the good news of God’s kingdom entering the world that saves God’s people through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
But these verses about the gospel never say that it is about salvation through faith alone, or grace alone, or any other doctrinal formula. The gospel is just the salvation that comes through God’s power being implemented in his kingdom through his son.
Since Catholicism affirms this truth, that means the Catholic Church is not preaching a false gospel. The glossary of the Catechism of the Catholic Church defines the gospel as “the ‘good news’ of God&#8217;s mercy and love revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. It is this gospel or good news that the apostles, and the Church following them, are to proclaim to the entire world.”
People who say Catholicism teaches a false gospel usually arrive at this conclusion through two mistaken lines of thought.
First, they assume that “the gospel” is identical to all essential doctrines of the Faith, but as we’ve seen, the Bible never defines “the gospel” in this way. The Trinity and Jesus’ messianic status are essential doctrines of Christianity, but Scripture never says these truths are part of “the gospel.”
Second, these critics assume that essential doctrines for their denomination must also be essential doctrines of the Christian faith, and so those doctrines must be part of the gospel.
For example, when many people are asked to summarize the gospel in one Bible verse, they will point to John 3:16, where John says, “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
Even though many Protestants say the Gospel of John is sufficient to proclaim the gospel, the word “gospel” is not in John’s Gospel. At best, this verse serves as a loose summary of the plan of salvation that flows from what the gospel is. But this verse is at least the start of a much better answer to the question “What is the Gospel?” than what the late John MacArthur said when he was asked <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g51niEf25ko">to summarize the gospel</a> in a single verse:
<blockquote>The greatest gospel verse in the bible [is] second Corinthians. “He made him who knew no sin sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of god in him.” . . . God punished Jesus for my sin, turns right around and treats me as if I lived [Christ’s] life. That&#8217;s the great doctrine of substitution, and on that doctrine turned the whole reformation of the church. That is the heart of the gospel.</blockquote>
MacArthur said the “heart of the gospel” is his particular, Reformed interpretation of 2 Corinthians 5:21. This involves our sins being imputed to Christ so that God sees us on the cross, and so he consequently punishes “us” while punishing Christ. And now God sees only “Christ” when he looks at us, and so he rewards us with eternal life. But once again, the Bible doesn’t say this is “the gospel.” even though the Greek word for gospel, euaggellion, is used nine times in 2 Corinthians.
Even if the passage were teaching the doctrine MacArthur thinks it’s teaching, that wouldn’t make it part of “the gospel.” Protestants know that the gospel is not identical to “everything the New Testament teaches,” because all of the major Protestant denominations differ on what the New Testament teaches, but they don’t anathematize every other Protestant as preaching a “false gospel” just because he has mistaken theology.
If the “heart of the gospel” were a particular Reformed understanding of 2 Corinthians 5:21, then followers of John Wesley (i.e., many Methodists), who believe in an “imparted” righteousness rather than an imputed righteousness, would have a false gospel. The same is true for any Christian who denies the doctrine of “double imputation” and believes that 2 Corinthians 5:21 teaches something else.
This includes believing that the verse is a reference to the Incarnation, or Christ coming in the form of sinful flesh, as Romans 8:3 says. The verse could also mean Christ “became sin” in. the sense that Christ became a sacrificial “sin offering” on our behalf, since the Hebrew word for sin is the same word for “sin offering.”
The Christian faith, even just the essential doctrines of the Christian faith, involve much more than the message of the gospel. Even Protestants who believe that Catholicism preaches the gospel still must wrestle with a difficult question: which doctrines are essential to the Christian faith, and how do we know they are essential?
Many Protestants believe that Scripture is perspicuous, or that it clearly reveals the essential doctrines Christians must believe. The Westminster Confession says that those things that are
<blockquote>necessary to be known, believed, and observed, for salvation are so clearly propounded and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them.</blockquote>
But isn’t it necessary for salvation to know if the largest Christian denomination in the world, Catholicism, preaches a true gospel or a false gospel? Even learned Protestants using ordinary means do not have agreement on this question, as can be seen in debates between Protestants on the question of whether Catholics are Christian or if they have a false gospel.
Ironically, this provides evidence that God’s authority structure for the Church is grounded not in something like sola scriptura, but in a living teaching office, or a magisterium capable of settling disputes definitively through authoritative, universal, and infallible teachings.
I hope that when Catholics are asked to explain “what the gospel is,” they will know both what the Bible teaches on this matter and how Christ’s Catholic Church brings us salvation and fulfills the “good news” of our salvation in Jesus Christ.

The Protestant Gospel Problem

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Are Catholics wrong about purgatory?

Karlo Broussard discusses the ideas that theologians throughout history have proposed about whether Purgatory is a physical place.

Where Is Purgatory?

Protestants believe the Bible is the only source for determining Christian truth. But as Karlo Broussard shows this belief is incoherent. If followed to its logical conclusion, Protestants would have to reject their knowledge of what Scripture is.
Transcript:
Protestants believe the Bible is the only source for determining Christian truth. This doctrine is called <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/the-protestant-achilles-heel">Sola Scriptura</a>, which is Latin for “Scripture Alone.”
But did you know that this fundamental doctrine of Protestantism is incoherent? Let me explain!
Notice the doctrine presupposes knowledge of what scriptura is—those books inspired by God that belong in the Bible. But if the Bible is the only source of Christian truth, then we couldn’t have such knowledge. Why? Because <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/proving-inspiration">the Bible never tells us which books are inspired</a>.
If Sola Scriptura were true, then we couldn&#8217;t know what scripture is. Do you see how it’s self-refuting?
Even if the Bible did give us a list of inspired books, and we believed the Bible was inspired, we couldn’t accept that list lest we be guilty of circular reasoning—“Why do you believe the biblical books are inspired?” “Because they say they’re inspired.” “Well, why do you believe them when they say that?” “Because they’re inspired.”
The only way to acknowledge the inspiration of Scripture and avoid circular reasoning is to appeal to an infallible Church established by Christ that tells us which books are inspired. But Protestants reject this idea, which gives rise to another conundrum.
If no infallible Church exists, and Protestants believe our knowledge that the biblical books are inspired is infallible, then we would have an infallible effect produced by a fallible cause, which is absurd.
The bottom line is Sola Scriptura is an unreasonable doctrine. So, of my Protestant friends I ask, “Why believe in a doctrine that can’t stand up to the scrutiny of reason?”
If you want to learn more about this topic and others like it, visit our website at catholic.com.
For Catholic Answers, I’m Karlo Broussard. Thanks for watching.

Why Is Sola Scriptura Unreasonable?

<div>Does having a Mass said for dead person save them from hell at their judgment?</div><div>Having a Mass said for someone after death cannot save them from hell. The reason for this is that grace does not override our choices.
When we have a Mass said for a deceased person we are presuming he is at least in purgatory and that the Mass will help lessen or ease the temporal punishment due to his sins. In this case, we are assuming or hoping that the individual has repented of sin.
Someone who ends up in hell is someone who died unrepentant in a state of mortal sin.  Such a person has refused the grace and mercy of God and therefore has refused any benefit from the sacrifice of the Mass. A worldly and imperfect example would be if I gave you a coupon for a reduced admission to an event. In order to make use of the coupon, you&#8217;d have to actually be going to the event. The coupon is of no use otherwise.
</div>

Can Mass Save Someone from Hell?

Where Can First-Class Relics Be Kept?

Jimmy Akin explains why the Church regards the time of man&#8217;s first creation as an article of science, not of faith, and gives his own personal thoughts on when he believes modern man came to be.

What Does the Church Teach About Evolution?

Let’s talk about trees. That could be a sub-heading for three of our readings today
Ezekiel speaks about God’s provision for the house of David, symbolized by a tree. The context of this passage is the impending destruction of Jerusalem and the exile of the chosen people. From a secular political viewpoint, this prediction likely came across as idealistic fantasy: how could a people ever recover from such a catastrophe, much less rebuild and thrive, becoming “majestic,” towering over all the other trees of the forest? This dramatic transformation is suggested also by our Lord in Mark, where the tiny mustard seed becomes the largest of plants, providing shade and shelter for many.
It&#8217;s likely that Jesus has just this passage from Ezekiel in mind when he makes his comments. It is also likely that both he and the prophet have in mind the many other scriptural tree images, especially those of the Psalter. Hence the fitting lines from our psalm: “The righteous shall flourish like a palm tree; and shall spread abroad like a cedar on Lebanon: such as are planted in the house of the Lord, shall flourish in the courts of the house of our God” (Ps. 92).
The first psalm in the Psalter presents a similar comparison:
<blockquote>BLESSED is the man that hath not walked in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stood in the way of sinners, and hath not sat in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law will he exercise himself day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the water-side, that will bring forth his fruit in due season. His leaf also shall not wither; and look, whatsoever he doeth, it shall prosper.</blockquote>
This image of a godly person planted by the stream of the word of God has always struck me as an appropriate opening to the entire sequence of Israel’s song book. In a way, the psalms are just this taking of delight in the law of the Lord, meditating on it, soaking it up, and allowing it to bear fruit.
No wonder, too, that the portion of Psalm 92 quoted above, Iustus ut palma, is a common text in the Church’s tradition of sacred music and liturgical poetry. This past Wednesday, I was celebrating a votive mass of St. Joseph, and there I was, struck by that same psalm as the Introit. Whether it’s Joseph or one of the martyrs, the Christian imagination has long appreciated the image of the saint as a tree planted and well established, drinking and growing not only for its own health, but for the sake of all around it. The saints nourish us with their fruit, shade us with their branches, protect us with their sturdy trunks.
I needn’t remind you that the Garden of Eden also featured trees. We discussed <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/genesis-is-true">last week</a> the nature of obedience and the significance of the forbidden fruit as a disordering of love. But today’s focus on trees and organic growth suggests yet another hidden meaning to that foundational story. For surely it is no coincidence that Adam and Eve are placed in a garden. Paradise is a garden full of trees and other plants. In other words, humanity is surrounded with creatures that grow slowly and deliberately, that flourish best when cultivated and assisted, but that cannot be forced or built or constructed from the outside.
Many of the Fathers and theologians have wondered what the human story would have looked like if our first parents had not fallen from grace. This is, mind you, not a firm teaching of the Church, but I find that the most convincing theory is that humanity was always, even before the Fall, destined for the supernatural vision of God. But even without the Fall, this supernatural vocation would have required a kind of development—in other words, it would take time for time-bound and material creatures, even creatures that were already in their own nature perfect, to acquire the habits necessary to unite themselves fully with the eternal. A true fellowship between God and man would require not some kind of external technology, but an interior growth.
Though the actual course of history took another turn—perhaps, in some mysterious way, a better one, as the sacred liturgy itself implies (“O happy fault”)—the necessity of growth remains. God is not some arbitrary despot toying with us through the chances of history. Rather, the fact of history, the fact that time goes on when even we in our limited imagination can conceive of it not going on, of God ending it all right now in fire, judgment, and the completion of all things, tells us that there is really no substitute for the work of time. The fact that inspired Scripture gives us so many tree images is a pretty clear warning. You cannot hurry a tree.
Just a few weeks ago at Pentecost, <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/watch-your-language">we recalled</a> how the Holy Spirit’s coming to the Church reverses the division and separation symbolized by the tower of Babel in Genesis. But think back to the tower itself, or at least what the tower represents. In that story, the peoples of the earth unite behind a new technology, the brick, to conquer the heavens. On many levels, it seems a silly story. Who, really, could imagine building a tower to heaven? And in fact, shouldn’t we want to reach heaven? Yes, we should. But the story reveals the danger of treating heaven as a technological achievement. A tree does not reach into the heights simply because we build a pillar under its roots. The tree just has to grow, as do we.
The analogy works well, following the various scriptural metaphors, for individual persons. Yet it is also a fitting description of the Church. As the pastor of a parish in a missionary diocese, it is a constant challenge to remember that growth must always happen naturally.
Now, we can think about baptisms as, in a way, grafting on new branches to the organism. That, too, is a scriptural metaphor. So the point isn’t that all technology is bad—surely it is a good thing to understand how best to nourish a tree. The point is that you cannot just paint the leaves a different color, or attach more branches with a rubber band. Ultimately, the life of the parish has to be rooted and connected with its source, and it’s much better to have a healthy small tree than a dying tree with a bunch of pretty false bits taped on.
There are some limits to this metaphor. The Church, as we say in the Creed, is one. I’m not sure that that means we have to imagine her as a single tree, or as a single orchard, or a single large garden cultivated by the Lord. She is all of those things, and none of them, and more. There have been some bad and misleading arboreal metaphors over the years, chief among them a “branch theory” that many of us heard as Anglicans, asserting that basically the Catholics, the Orthodox, the Anglicans, and possibly other Protestants are all just “branches” of the one Church. That image is historically naïve and incoherent, repugnant to the teaching of the early Church, but it lives on because it contains some nuggets of truth, such as the validity of baptism and the true proclamation of certain parts of apostolic doctrine.
There are, if you will, threads by which these so-called “branches” hang on to the main body. But Jesus doesn’t call us to be loosely connected with the body, to receive nourishment in an accidental and haphazard way. He wants us to receive all of his grace. All of him for all of us. He doesn’t just want us barely to stay alive. He wants us to thrive, to grow, and to bear fruit, just as he intended from the very beginning. We can do that only when rooted in his word, nourished by his sacraments, and fixed in the place where he has called us.

Prepare to Be Gardened

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The deadly sin NO ONE talks about...

St. Thomas Aquinas lists fortitude—courage—among the four cardinal virtues. For the Angelic Doctor, fortitude is the virtue that enables a person to overcome great difficulties or obstacles to do what is right and good. I want to suggest that marriage, particularly in our day, requires fortitude.
I make that observation in conjunction with modern sociological data, which show that people are putting marriage off. Men and women marry on average later than ever before, if they marry at all. Plenty of ersatz substitutes today replace permanent marriage. And even though the Church still speaks of marital indissolubility, our society puts less enforcement behind the marriage contract than a plumbing contract.
Yes, I know—there are many socio-economic factors that inhibit marriage. Prolonged education, college debt, finding a job, establishing oneself in one’s profession, inflation, the cost of housing, woke norms for relations between the sexes—all these factors impinge negatively on getting married. Facing and then surmounting them takes courage. Advancing to parenthood—which, as the Church sees it, is a normal next step, not an “optional accessory” to marriage—requires even more courage. The fact that the gap between marriage and having children is also growing attests to this.
Young people might say, “Well, I’m not afraid of marriage per se. I don’t know how to find the right person, and I’m afraid I’ll lose my kids and money if she divorces me.” I’ve met good spouses like this, left on ice.
We shouldn’t downplay those concerns. Dating, too, has not just declined, but also assumed some unhealthy forms. If there’s one thing young adults criticize about the Church, it is how it’s “there” (or, rather, “not there”) for them. In an earlier, more church-going age, parishes might be places to meet. But today’s parish social life more often caters to seniors than spouse-seekers. Male educational and earning declines, coupled with something of a mutated double standard (“I’m independent, but I want a guy who protects and can support me”) make concerns about permanence real (even though the divorce rate has been declining).
These are real worries. Some require social fixes (e.g., how men are “falling behind”). Some can be addressed at the parish (e.g., a parish supper or movie night for young adults). All helping hands welcome!
In the end, though, we still come back to courage. It takes courage to set out into the deep, whether in the particular circumstances that living in our day requires or those certain constants to marriage that have always required courage.
One of them is faith. Do you believe in love? Do you believe that God gives you the grace to be with this one person, ’til death do you part?
In conjunction with that, do you see marriage as a vocation? The Church’s vocabulary has long cheated marriage by speaking of “vocations” as primarily connected with the priesthood and religious life. But marriage is a vocation.
“Marriage as vocation” probably requires a new catechesis of marriage. Young Catholics know that marriage is a sacrament. But what does that mean? First, as a sacrament of vocation, marriage is not—to borrow a modern phrase—a “moment.” It is not just “the wedding day.” It begins on the wedding day but ends on the day of death. Second, one is assuming spiritual responsibility for another. Marriage affects the spiritual, which means that thinking about marriage—and the things that lead up to it, like courtship and dating—will require Catholics to get a bit “serious.” Juice Newton had it right: “It’s hard to be a lover when you say you’re only in it for fun.”
That, of course, therefore implies that the choice of a spouse also involves spiritual discernment. Does this person share my values in what counts? In God? In the Church? In how we live as married people? In how we bear and raise children? Those things—and not just common interests, hobbies, or preferences—are what matters. They also raise questions about “mixed marriages.”
When people tell me that the religious dimension of their wedding and wedding plans are something subordinate, something “I’ll get to,” that should be a warning bell: it’s the marital equivalent of doing everything for Christmas except getting ready for Christ.
If one can trust another “’til death do us part” after such a process of discernment, then by all means, do the courageous thing and marry. Of course, that requires prudence (another cardinal virtue). Do I have a job? Some savings? Can we make a go of things?
But don’t let “prudence” turn into fearful paralysis. You cannot control everything. In fact, you’ll find in life that what you can control is relatively modest. Prudence means not being reckless, but prudence also is paired with another vital reality: faith in Providence, that “God who has begun this good work in you will now bring it to completion” . . . even if you might not know just how he’s going to do it. Because it may be in totally unexpected ways. All you should do is recognize that “God makes all things work for the good of those who love him” (Rom. 8:28)—especially when that love is multiplied by two or more “gathered in my name” (Matt. 18:20).
National Marriage Week is February 7-14, World Marriage Sunday February 9. Reading the signs of the times, we know there are challenges out there, and they are real. We know that there are lots of resistance to the Catholic vision of marriage. But when we consider the vision the Church offers us in marriage and, with faith that “God is for us,” let us make Jesus’s words our own: “Take courage; I have conquered the world” (John 16:33).