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Live
Letters Second Sunday of
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The Catholic Telegraph
February 22, 2002This Sunday’s first reading is concerned with God’s call of Abraham, a call that would entail leaving the home he knew and moving ahead toward the promises that God was making to him. The gospel reading for this Sunday shows us Jesus transfigured on the mountain top in the presence of His principal followers. Our second reading bridges the two themes of vocation (our calling by God) and of the manifestation of Christ.
In this reading from Second Timothy we have Paul (or someone writing in his name) offering encouragement to a junior apostle.
The reading begins with a sentence that sums up the preceding paragraph in which the author has been encouraging Timothy to be confident and courageous in his proclamation of the gospel.
Timothy has reason to be confident, the text says, because his calling to salvation and holiness does not depend on his own resources, but on the planning and generosity of God. This is a long-range plan that God prepared "before time began." It was a plan that would find fulfillment in Christ Jesus. This plan has now been made public through Jesus’ manifestation of Himself. Jesus’ work consists in bringing us into a new kind of unending life and in destroying the former kind of life that was bounded by death. Jesus does this through the proclamation of the gospel. This reading from Second Timothy is deeply appropriate for the lenten season of preparation for baptism (for those entering the Church at Easter) and of repentance and change of heart (for those of us already members of the community of faith). It continues the instruction that began last Sunday about the nature of salvation and holds up three aspects of salvation for our reflection.
First and foremost, our salvation consists in a holy life, i.e., a godly life. Being saved means being created again in a new likeness to God. It means expressing and extending the life of God in our individual earthly existence. This life of God comes to us through our incorporation into the life of the risen Christ. The gospel that brings us "life and immortality" is the announcement of the presence of God in our midst through the life and ministry of Jesus. This is what God had in mind for us "before time began" and what is now being made clear and accessible to us through the saving initiative of Jesus. The transfiguration of Jesus that the apostles witnessed on the mountaintop was a preview of the transfiguration that all of us would be called to share through Jesus’ gift of Himself to us through faith and baptism.
The second aspect of salvation that this live letter offers us is the insistence that the newness of life in Christ that constitutes salvation comes to us as a gift from God and not "according to our works." Obviously we have a part to play in our own salvation, but that part consists in response, not initiative. When we strive to follow God’s law in moral behavior, when we pray, when we reach out in generosity to our brothers and sisters, when we strive to improve the tone and vigor of our personal spirituality in times of penance, we are not achieving salvation for ourselves. Rather, we are responding to the salvation that God is either offering us or has already bestowed on us.
It’s important that we stay aware of the gratuitous nature of salvation, because, if we don’t, if we begin to think that we can deserve it, we are saying false things either about ourselves or about salvation. If salvation is a share in God’s life, we simply cannot deserve it. It’s totally beyond us, even as God is totally beyond us. God is not something we can reach out and harvest like an apple from a tree. To think that God is Someone or Something that is subject to acquisition by our human efforts is nothing less than blasphemous. Conversely, if we are able to earn salvation for ourselves, then it must be something considerably less awesome than Jesus and His Church lead us to believe. Everything that human effort can achieve on its own is tainted by sin, blighted by selfishness. Look at how limited and transitory the greatest human accomplishments are. Look at how everything human beings carry out is capable of being turned around for our own destruction. If human effort can buy or earn salvation, we need to ask ourselves whether that kind of salvation will prove to be worth the effort.
The third aspect of salvation that this reading offers us comes at the very beginning. "Bear your share of hardships ... with the strength that comes from God." We live in a sinful and selfish world. God seems strange and distant to many people, and men and women who are reaching out in faith and commitment often seem to be living in a dream world. The circumstances in which we live make it difficult to profess the gospel. Then there are the elements inside each of us - inclinations to sin and selfishness, prejudices that make it hard for us to think correctly, superficiality that makes the things of God unappealing - that make responding to God a real struggle. Today God’s word assures us that God loves us so much that He will see we have the strength we need in order to accept His gifts to us.
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Conversation Questions.
How would my life be different if I had not been called to faith by God?
How do I perceive God’s call to salvation on a day to day basis?
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