WordMadeFlesh said:
Please check out this site…it is Fr. Cantalamessa’s website. It appears to cotain the entire homily. I did not read the words “faith alone” in this homily. Would appreciate others to check this out and compare with sources that contain the article being referrenced to in this thread.Hi Rita!
You are quite correct in your statement that the term “faith alone” nowhere occurs in the text of that homily and in fact the word “alone” only occurs once.
(For those of you who are not tech savvy, this is easily verified by going to that webpage and then simply hitting “Ctrl f” which is the “find” feature in your browser. )
Let me quote here 2 paragraphs that I think might lay this “controversy”
(which I don’t really think is one) to rest.
When one speaks of faith in St. Paul one thinks spontaneously of the great theme of justification by faith in Christ.
And on this we wish to concentrate our attention, not to outline the umpteenth discussion on the topic, but to receive his consoling message. I was saying in the first meditation that there currently exists a need for kerygmatic preaching, suitable to incite faith where it has never existed, or where it has died. Gratuitous justification by faith in Christ is the heart of this type of preaching, and it is a shame that this is, in turn, practically absent from ordinary preaching in the Church.
In this respect something strange has occurred. To the objections raised by the reformers, the Council of Trent had given a Catholic response, that there is a place for faith and for good works, each one, it was understood, in its place.
One is not saved by good works, but one cannot be saved without good works. Nevertheless, from this moment in which the Protestants insisted unilaterally on faith,
Catholic preaching and spirituality ended up accepting the nearly exclusive and thankless work of calling to mind the need for good works and of one’s personal contribution to salvation. The result is that the great majority of Catholics have lived entire lives without having ever heard a direct announcement of gratuitous justification by faith, without too many “buts.”(All emphasis above is mine.)
There is no conflict with Catholic belief in this homily, nor heresy. The good Monsignor is simply saying that we must never forget that no matter how faithful we are or what we do
after we are converted it is not all our good works that gains us salvation, but the faith in the sacrifice of Christ.
I think he clarifies this beautifully in his final points (# 6) when he says:
Continuing with the autobiographical text of Philippians 3, Paul suggests to us the practical idea with which we will conclude our reflection:
“Brothers, I for my part do not consider myself to have taken possession [of perfect maturity]. Just one thing: forgetting the past but straining forward to what lies ahead, I continue my pursuit toward the goal, the prize of God’s upward calling, in Christ Jesus” ([cf.] Philippians 3:13-14).
“Forgetting the past.” What “past”? That of the Pharisee, of what he had said before? No, the past of the apostle, in the Church! Now the “gain” to consider a “loss” is something else: It is precisely having already considered once everything lost to the cause of Christ. It was natural to think: “What courage, this Paul: to abandon such a good career as a rabbi for an obscure sect of Galileans! And what letters he has written! How many trips he undertook! How many churches he founded!”
The Apostle warned confusedly of the mortal danger of putting between himself and Christ “his own righteousness” derived from works – this time the works done by Christ – and he reacted vigorously. “I do not believe,” he said, “that I have reached perfection.” St. Francis of Assisi, in a similar situation, cut short any temptation of self-complacency, saying: “We begin, brothers, to serve the Lord, because until now we have done little or nothing.”[8]
This is the most necessary conversion for those that have followed Christ and have lived serving him in the Church. A conversion altogether special, which does not consist in abandoning evil, but rather, in a certain sense, in abandoning the good! That is, by detaching oneself from all that you have done, repeating to yourself, according to the suggestion of Christ: “We are useless servants; we have done only our duty” (Luke 17:10). And not even, perhaps, the good we should do!
Pax vobiscum,
