"Heaven is not a shoo-in and you need to get off your fat butt and cooperate with grace"

Mark Shea is shooting warning shots over the bow:

There is, to be sure, a very dangerous presumption of Universalism among a lot of Catholics. The average Catholic tends to talk as though it’s automatic heaven for everybody except maybe Hitler or a pedophile priest somewhere. Partly that springs from a psychological habit of not presuming to judge others. Partly it springs from a conviction that, at the end of the day, most people are pretty good and the whole “need of salvation” thing is good for religious types and specially devoted folk, but as long as we keep our noses clean and pay our taxes, we’re pretty much a shoo-in. That mentality needs killin’ bad since the testimony of the Tradition is that the crucifixion not only is the payment for our sin, but a demonstration of what our species, apart from grace, really does. What is homo sapiens? Homo sapiens is the species that does *that* to God when he gets his hands on him. We really are quite vile apart from grace. And that means you, bub. You’re not a nice person. Neither am I. Without the fifty bazillion helps and supports of grace, you would be a disgusting thing indeed. And even with those helps and supports, God has his hands full keeping you out of trouble. You and I are, in the most cosmic sense of the word, jerks. So heaven is not a shoo-in and you need to get off your fat butt and cooperate with grace because you could still lose this battle of life, close your heart forever and wind up losing everything you ever desired most deeply.

That’s the warning of hell. The problem is, there is another sort of person: the one who is pretty sure he knows that there are lots of people in hell and (just between you and me) who quite a number of them are. The problem is simply this: we know no such thing. We don’t know the end of the story. So we are allowed neither presumption nor despair. We are only allowed hope.

We are only allowed hope, a beautiful hope, there for those who dare to partake and hold.

Go see what stirred Mark on the subject.  It's worth the trip.

Comments

[Tim Chesterton]

Very excellent. Thanks. Of course, it's not just a tendency amongst Catholics!

[NickS]

How exactly does one "cooperate with grace" with regard to salvation?

How do you lose a battle Jesus fights on your behalf?

[Rick]

NickS,

There's a reason the Scriptures tell us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling... is there not?

You're not suggesting that passivity is the key... are you?

[NickS]

Rick,

Justification (salvation) is 100% by grace. What Jesus has accomplished to completion requires nothing of me. I cannot lose that fight.

Sanctification, the process of becoming Christlike and "working out" or better said, demonstrating our salvation requires effort and discipline. This is a fight for which the Holy Spirit empowers us, and Jesus intercedes for us. It is not, IMHO, cooperating with grace as much as it is yielding to the call of Holiness.

Let me suggest that the feeling that someone is taking advantage of you (your spouse, etc) is the first inkling that you are living on the edge of sacrificial love. That I am beginning to live out what Paul calls us to earlier in Philippians 2, the attitude of Christ. That is the introduction to the instruction to work out our salvation in fear and trembling.

Nick