PAUL SPEAKS OF SALVATION ON THIS FEAST OF ST. ANDREW
Feast of Saint Andrew, Apostle
My dear encountered couples:
There are many things that we do in order to be saved, in order to go to heaven. We get baptized and become a member of the Church. We offer Mass, we receive the sacraments; we pray daily and do our best to keep God’s laws and the laws of the Church. Some of us pray the rosary, make the stations of the cross, light candles, honor the saints, especially the Blessed Virgin Mary, and perform many acts of charity. These are all good and can be very helpful for our salvation.
But there is something, and Someone, much more important, even absolutely essential to our salvation. That something is Faith! That Someone is Jesus Christ!
This is how St. Paul in his letter to the Romans has put it: “If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Faith in the heart leads to justification, confession on the lips to salvation.”
Our faith is shown by our lives - by the things we say, yes, but more so by the things we do. Our praying, our Masses, our acts of charity should all be results of our faith. They will not save us by themselves. But they show the sincerity of our faith, the depth of our belief. Those actions also help to solidify the faith we have, to strengthen our belief in a loving God and in his Son. Just who is it in this world who can be saved?
“EVERYONE,” Paul says, “who calls upon the name of the Lord.”
