Spirituality of "What is the least I can do and be saved?"

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Having seen a number of threads with the line of “What is the least I can do and be saved?”, I feel it would be beneficial to looking into the resultant spirituality that this produces and encourage discussion about it.

I will start in the next post with a story and build from there.
 
I suppose God will ultimately decide what the least is in His eyes, i’m sure what man thinks is most will still be least in his eyes… I think you personally have to Love God with all your heart, body, mind and soul… i also think you have to love thy neighbor as yourself… that being said, and that strikes me as a daunting task at the least, and probably an insurmountable mountain at most… Scripture talks of a norrow door… and i’m sure it will be a tight fit for me if he will have me… i can only hope my best satisfies for his least… 👍
 
At the very least, one needs to drop the minimalist attitude and look at what our response is to the great love that has been poured out upon us. . .:twocents:
 
A story - The Least Saved Person Arrives at the Gates of Heaven.

Least, a person who lived by doing the minimum to be saved with the rest of the focus on himself, dies.

Least arrives at the Pearlly Gates and meets St. Peter.

St. Peter says the Lord has given me directions on how to handle you so follow me, first you are to spend a trillion years in Purgatory to love how to love and become pure enough to enter God’s presence. Then since God uses our measure that we weighed things to weigh us, and you choose to give the least, so too in his justice, you will be given the least. St. Peter then shows Least an image of what his residence in heaven will look like. A beat-up shack in a deep smelly cave off a muddy river surrounded by palatial estates (for others) on majestic mountains covered in beauty. Least is shocked by this and states that it is not fair as he did what was required.

St. Peter states “Humans were created to know, love and serve God. All you wanted and chose for yourself was the least you could get by on. Well that is all you get here as well. If God did not love you as much as He does, he would not have been merciful and grant you this much for you totally missed the boat. Life is not about doing the minimum, but rather of loving, giving of oneself for other and to God.”
 
You could say that the least is to be born again of water and the Spirit, but then why did Jesus teach the rest of that stuff? As humans, we seem to always look for short cuts. The Mosaic law arose from simple worship by Adam’s son Able to a convoluted system to cover everything. Why? Because we will either look for shortcuts or claim that that was not against the rules so we can do it. Loving God with all of our being and loving our neighbors as ourselves is easy to say, but hard to do.

Look at the Bible itself. If all I need to do is accept Jesus, then why will not all who say Lord Lord be saved? So, in accepting Jesus I must do something. But, wait, I now have to get off of my couch. That will not work. GIve me an easy way, a short way, so that my backside my increase with my faith.
 
T.A.Stobie:
A story - The Least Saved Person Arrives at the Gates of Heaven.

Least, a person who lived by doing the minimum to be saved with the rest of the focus on himself, dies.

Least arrives at the Pearlly Gates and meets St. Peter.

St. Peter says the Lord has given me directions on how to handle you so follow me, first you are to spend a trillion years in Purgatory to love how to love and become pure enough to enter God’s presence. Then since God uses our measure that we weighed things to weigh us, and you choose to give the least, so too in his justice, you will be given the least. St. Peter then show Least an image of what his residence in heaven will look like. A beat-up shack in a deep smelly cave off a muddy river surrounded by palatial estates (for others) on majestic mountains covered in beauty. Least is shocked by this and states that it is not fair as he did what was required.

St. Peter states “Humans were created to know, love and serve God. All you wanted and chose for yourself was the least you could get by on. Well that is all you get here as well. If God did not love you as much as He does, he would not have been merciful and grant you this much for you totally missed the boat. Life is not about doing the minimum, but rather of loving, giving of oneself for other and to God.”
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Great post.
 
Jesus in the Gospel teaches against legalism, but rather living the spirit of the law.

What is the spirit of the law?

"We are to know, love, and serve the Lord our God with our whole heart, mind, and soul, and love our neighbor as ourselves."

Scary, it isn’t it. As humans, we have a sinful nature, and at times will fail to do this. We are called to live the spirit of the law and try to reach it perfection (which we probably will only do when we arrive in Heaven.) so what is important is that we really try and struggle to overcome our shortcomings. For God is merciful and if we truly want forgiveness and to turn away from sin, God will forgive us and strengthen us.
 
Now speaking even harder against this philosophy,

We are all called on this world to learn how to truly love.

Pure love is unconditional and has no restrictions or limitations placed on it.

Clinging to an attitude of “What is the least I can do and be saved?” is an act therefore against love and deeping our love. With this attitude we actually turn our backs on God and mock His love, His mercy, and His Justice.

I would not want to face God if I had this attitude.
 
T.A.Stobie:
Now speaking even harder against this philosophy,

We are all called on this world to learn how to truly love.

Pure love is unconditional and has no restrictions or limitations placed on it.

Clinging to an attitude of “What is the least I can do and be saved?” is an act therefore against love and deeping our love. With this attitude we actually turn our backs on God and mock His love, His mercy, and His Justice.

I would not want to face God if I had this attitude.
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I suspect the Fathers of the Church asked themselves this same question, because their primary concern was to reach the multitudes, to save souls through the sacrifice.

It’s important to note that the Church’s mission has never been to build legions of spiritual masters. While the Church has acknowledged Herself as the conduit through which the individual can attain the highest state of happiness both on earth and in heaven (thus making spiritual mastery a possibility), that’s never been the primary focus.

So, is there a minimal amount one can do to ensure salvation? Sure, and we sum it up when we say the Nicene Crede (or the Profession of Faith every Sunday).

But inside the Credo itself, we find that asking the question about minimal effort is, to begin with, contrary to the message of the Church. For instance, just as it is written above, if we really interiorize the message of God, if we really grasp the message of the cross, we can’t simply look for bare minimums. To respect the message means that we as individuals seek to emulate the boundless limits of love that God has for us.
 
It seems like if a person has the attitude of “what is the least I can do and be saved?” then they are probably wanting to go to Heaven for purely selfish reasons (like to avoid hell). After what Christ has done for us we should be asking “what more can I do for Him?” not “what is the least I can do?”
 
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bonica:
It seems like if a person has the attitude of “what is the least I can do and be saved?” then they are probably wanting to go to Heaven for purely selfish reasons (like to avoid hell). After what Christ has done for us we should be asking “what more can I do for Him?” not “what is the least I can do?”
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I agree. For instance, in confession, a less full contrition entails my being sorry for my sins because I am threatened with condemnation. But a perfect, full sense of contrition entails my being sorry for my sins because they offend God, who is all-deserving of my love.
 
I have seem many posts on this forum trying with people either convinced that their pickings of the teachings on faith and doctrine as acceptible or trying to convinced themself of it. This is taking the least attitude and trying to bend it further by trying to produce logic (flawed as it is) that a teaching that must be believed does not have to be believed.

We are called to live not by just the letter of the law (the teaching on faith and morals), but rather the spirit of the law. I wish people would stop trying to justify what they know in their hearts is wrong. Not only do they lead themselves further into sin, but also those who buy their (self justifying but incorrect) arguments.
 
The trick is in understanding that the spirit of the law does not preclude also living by the letter of the Law. It is not, accept the Spirit of the Law, but chuck the Law, for if that were the point, how would we ever be able to understand the Spirit behind the fullness of Laws we had never come to know?

I’m so glad I was born Catholic, so that when I came to know that I desired God, I was open to the idea of coming home when He called.

Isn’t God great!

CARose
 
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ralphinal:
Look at the Bible itself. If all I need to do is accept Jesus, then why will not all who say Lord Lord be saved? So, in accepting Jesus I must do something.
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There are those who claim that if you accept Jesus you will just naturally “do something”. That it is evidence of your salvation, something that you WILL do not something that you MUST do. How do you answer that?

Thanks!

In Christ,
Nancy 🙂
 
Given some of the posts I have seen lately, I thought bringing this back up to the top may be useful to some.
 
Hmm, you didnt think all the posts I did about doing the minimum back in December deserved a resurrection of this thread? Oh well I’m not so worried about it all these days but I’ll put my thoughts to you again.

Firstly, what is the logic of ‘what is the least I must do to be saved’. If doing the least to be saved actually offends God, if it is a mortal sin, then it is NOT the least you need to do to be saved, because it wouldn’t actually save you. If you actually do ‘the least to get saved’, this implies that you must actually get saved. And by the way, no one gets a beat up old house in heaven. Understand this - if you get to heaven, you’ve made it. You’re with God and everyone is happy.

It sounds more like you have a problem with people doing what they think is the least to get saved but is actually not enough to get saved, I don’t know. Point is that anything that is enough to get saved, whether it is the least or the most you can do, must be pleasing to God rather than offending to God otherwise it wouldn’t get you saved at all.

I have been asking about sins of ommission whenever the topic is brought up - what do I actually have to do? Why would it not be written down? Why would God make it hard for us to know what He wants is to do? God hands us truth through the bible and through the AT and this forms the teachings of the Church. If God expects me to do it then it should be in the teachings of the Church. If it’s not in the teachings of the Church then God doesn’t expect me to do it.

Not saying I know this is true - I wouldn’t want to mislead people by what you call my self justifying but incorrect argument. So if you see a problem with it, point it out. I’ve wanted to learn but no one will tell me a darn thing about sins of omission or anything!
 
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