Final Thoughts
Thank you for going through this course on “The Economy of Salvation, the Role of the Church, and the Mystery of Evil.”
As I said in the final lesson, these reflections are meant to inspire divine hope, love, and holy fear of the Lord, so that we can do the work of salvation faithfully. Divine hope (and love) encourages us forward, and holy fear pushes back against what is left behind. Fear also keeps our hope from degrading into presumption, which stalls our progress.
These reflections have helped me, so I hope that they will help you as well.
I’d like to leave you with two quotes. The first is from Saint John Paul II, and it expresses well the core of what we discussed in the first several lessons:
While acknowledging that God loves all people and grants them the possibility of being saved (cf. l Tm 2:4), the Church believes that God has established Christ as the one mediator and that she herself has been established as the universal sacrament of salvation. … It is necessary to keep these two truths together … Both these truths help us to understand the one mystery of salvation, so that we can come to know God’s mercy and our own responsibility. Salvation, which always remains a gift of the Holy Spirit, requires man’s cooperation, both to save himself and to save others. This is God’s will, and this is why he established the Church and made her a part of his plan of salvation. Referring to “this messianic people,” the Council says; “It has been set up by Christ as a communion of life, love and truth; by him too it is taken up as the instrument of salvation for all, and sent on a mission to the whole world as the light of the world and the salt of the earth.”
The second quote is from Blessed Jordan of Saxony, about Saint Dominic, and it expresses well the practical calling we can take from all of these lessons:
His frequent and special prayer to God was for the gift of true charity capable of laboring for and winning the salvation of men, since he deemed that he would be a true member of Christ only when he could devote himself entirely to gaining souls, like the Lord Jesus, the Savior of all, who offered himself completely for our salvation.
Let’s pray:
Lord Jesus, help us to understand more deeply the mystery of salvation. Make us holy, make us the light of the world and the salt of the earth, and give us the gift of true charity, so that we might labor for our own salvation and that of others; all in the One Mediator Jesus Christ, through the Church He founded, and filled with the Holy Spirit, to the eternal glory of God the Father. Amen.