What does it mean to have faith in Jesus Christ?
The life of faith has two components: intellectual and experiential. Through the relationship of faith, we participate in the divine life of the One who loves us and created us out of love. Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis speak of this reality when they state, “Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.”[1]
What does it mean to be a witness?
In the Gospels, Jesus establishes a relationship with all humanity. He does this first by becoming man through His incarnation and birth, and again through His words and deeds in His earthly life and public ministry.[2] He communicates this relationship to individuals through the gift of faith that He offers in His church. In this gift, He communicates to us a share of the divine life that He has with the Father and the Holy Spirit.
We participate in this communion with God in the following ways:
- by freely cooperating with the workings of God in our lives through the grace of the Holy Spirit — allowing that grace to make us holy;
- by living our relationship with Jesus in faith, sharing it with people in words and deeds;[3] and
- living in communion with the Church through faith, and participating in the sacramental life she offers us.[4]
Jesus speaks of this divine communion when he says, “No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him.”[5]
Why is this communion with God through Jesus and His Catholic Church so important?
First, it gives us salvation and healing from sin. Sin is the worst. It can enslave us, destroy who we are, and even separate us from God forever.[6] Second, it enables us to become who God made us to be: saints. The saints in the history of the Church are not only beloved sons and daughters of God. They are also men and women who, through their cooperation with grace, became “other Christs” in their own vocations, and times in history. If we cooperate with grace, it gives us a participation in the life of God — to love as He loves — so much so that we manifest directly who He is in the here and now.[7]
For this process of sanctification to be perfected in us — and that we be fruitful agents of grace for others — we have to understand the connection between grace, love, and justice.
What are justice and love?
Justice is the virtue that “consists in the constant and firm will to give [one’s] due to God and neighbor.”[8] This “constant and firm will” shows that the just person loves the truth. The just person knows how to relate to people in truth. The just person considers his neighbor as another person who is distinct from him, respects his rights, and acknowledges his current stance on matters of faith.
To understand fully how love fits in here, we need to understand the fullness of love, which is Charity. Charity is the virtue by which we love God above all else and our neighbor as ourselves for God’s sake. So while justice considers the other person as distinct from us, Charity considers the other person as an extension of our very selves, for we find unity with them in God. Charity gives beyond the rights of justice, for the love of God is superabundant.[9] When seen through the lens of Divine love, then, justice becomes elevated to a higher plane. We are enabled to relate to God and others with the heart and mind of Christ.[10]
When we cooperate faithfully with the graces we receive through prayer and the sacraments, we become able to manifest God’s love and justice. Our ordinary actions become “sacramentalized” – they point to Jesus working in us. He strengthens us to do all things by his grace, in his name, and according to His will. We are quickly led to a confrontation with our own sin, so that we can be perfected by God Himself in the witness of love and justice.[11]
What is the union between love and justice in the work of evangelization?
Saint Thomas Aquinas defines love as “to will the good of the other.”[12] The “good” is their happiness, salvation, and perfection as God intends it for them – not according to my ideas or their ideas. Saint Francis de Sales speaks of the relationship between love and justice in the following way: First, he says, “We have affection for God and the things that he loves.”[13] This is the affective, or emotional aspect of love, that affirms God’s goodness, and the good that is present in others. Next, he says, love enables us “to serve God and do what he ordains.” This is the effective, or productive aspect of love, that does what needs to be done for the salvation of ourselves and others.[14] It respects people’s individual rights, but also the rights of God, who is the ultimate authority on what we should believe, and how we should live. And so, love and justice are intimately connected in evangelization when we love people with affective, and effective love. We hear in the psalms that “all the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth” — you might re-translate that as, “all the ways of the Lord are love and justice.”[15]
God bestows the graces we need to live the Gospel in justice and love. Unfortunately, we have to contend with the realities of sin, self-indulgence, and the influence of relativism and pop-psychology, which obscure the way forward. These errors can make it very difficult to manifest the love and justice of Christ in evangelization. The temptation is to make evangelization about self-promotion, intellectual head games, or prideful superiority.[16] All these things contribute to a shallow or merely cerebral faith devoid of authentic justice and charity — it’s divorced from the realities of people and life. The true work of evangelization, however, is grounded in the Sacraments, and an authentically-lived faith. Through these, the evangelist builds relationships with others and helps them to do the same, with Jesus.
Manifesting the love of God means knowing how to act in justice and love. The wisdom of justice and love enables a person to discern the situation before them. We believe that, through faith, prayer, and the grace and truth working in our hearts, Jesus will help us to respond appropriately to the person before us.[17]
[1] Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est, 1; Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, 7.
[2] Dei Verbum, n. 4.
[3] Ad Gentes, 11-12; Paul VI, Evangelii Nuntiandi, 41; John Paul II, Redemptoris Missio, 7.
[4] CCC 300, 303, 308, 1996-2000; Francis, Lumen Fidei, 19-21.
[5] Matt 11:27.
[6] CCC 1846-1869; Donald Haggerty, Conversion: Spiritual Insights into an Essential Encounter with God, (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2017) 55-73.
[7] CCC 2000.
[9] Ibid., 826, 1604, 2001-2002, 2011, 2023-2024, 2069; John Paul II, Redemptoris Missio, 10-11.
[10] Cf. Jn 5:1–18; 8:13–19; 10:24–33; 11:45–54; 18–19:16.
[11] Haggerty, 77-78.
[12] Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, IIa-IIae, q. 27, a, 1, reply obj. 2 & a. 2, reply obj. 2.
[13] Francis de Sales, Treatise on the Love of God, 6.1.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Ps 25:10.
[16] Haggerty, 94-95, 123-124, 201-202.
[17] Francis, Gaudete et Exultate, 80-86.