Friday, June 6, 2025

Day 261: Justification

Justification establishes cooperation between God's grace and man's freedom. On man's part, it is expressed by the assent of faith to the Word of God, which invites him to conversion, and in the cooperation of charity with the prompting of the Holy Spirit, who precedes and preserves his assent. CCC 1993


In today's reading, the Catechism discusses the one issue more than any other that divided Christians during the Protestant Reformation: justification. In short, justification in Catholic teaching is the process by which one is made righteous and brought into a right relationship with God. With justification, there is forgiveness of sins by the redemptive sacrifice of Christ (Rom 5:9), sanctification by the Holy Spirit (2 Thes 2:13), and by God's grace, divinization (2 Pet 1:4). As for the divisions caused by the Protestant Reformation on justification, there is hope in the ecumenical agreements reached in the late 1990s.

The Catechism Compendium gives a summary of what justification is:
Justification is the most excellent work of God's love. It is the merciful and freely-given act of God which takes away our sins and makes us just and holy in our whole being. It is brought about by means of the grace of the Holy Spirit, which has been merited for us by the passion of Christ and is given to us in Baptism. Justification is the beginning of the free response of man, that is, faith in Christ and of cooperation with the grace of the Holy Spirit. (#422)

 The Catechism Companion, Vol III has some good commentary on this:

The life of the Holy Spirit is how we are called to live. We are not just covered by grace, but grace does something inside of us. Through the sacraments, our fundamental disposition toward the Lord is radically reoriented. We are made into new creations... We are not merely passive recipients of God's grace. We are always active recipients of God's grace because we could reject it... When the Holy Spirit comes upon us in this work of giving us grace, and we walk in faith, hope, and love because of what Jesus has done for us, every action of the day is an act of grace. (p. 38)

Finally, Dr. Jenislawski of Christendom College has a great lecture on the question, "Are you saved?" that is found over at Institute for the Catholic Culture

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