Acts 4:12 ~ Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven, given among men, whereby we must be saved.

The Catholic Church teaches, and has always taught, that salvation is through Christ alone.  He is the one who saves us from sin and from the eternal punishment for sin.  There's no way we can attain heaven on our own.  What I want to do in this entry is highlight some of the key passages from the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) that explain what the Church really teaches on salvation. 

CCC 1949 ~ Called to beatitude but wounded by sin, man stands in need of salvation from God.  Divine help comes to him in Christ through the law that guides him and the grace that sustains him. 

Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. (Phil 2:12-13 RSV)

CCC 1990 ~ Justification detaches man from sin which contradicts the love of God, and purifies his heart of sin.  Justification follows upon God's merciful initiative of offering forgiveness.  It reconciles man with God.  It frees from the enslavement to sin, and it heals.

CCC 1996 ~ Our justification comes from the grace of God.  Grace is favor, the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of God, adoptive sons, partakers of the divine nature and of eternal life. [Cf. Jn 1:12-18; 17:3, Rom 8:14-17, 2 Pet 1:3-4]

"God's free initiative demans man's free response, for God has created man in his image by conferring on him, along with freedom, the power to know him and love him.  The soul only enters freely into the communion of love.  God immediately touches and directly moves the heart of man.  He has placed in man a longing for truth and goodness that only he can satisfy.  The promises of "eternal life" respond, beyond all hope, to this desire." ~ CCC 2002

"Spiritual progress tends toward ever more intimate union with Christ.  This union is called "mystical" because it participates in the mystery of Christ through the sacraments - "the holy mysteries" - and, in him, in the mystery of the Holy Trinity. ~ CCC 1014

Christ is continually offering the gift of his grace to us, and when we accept Him, He is able to work His sanctification in us.  Our role is to be constantly accepting Christ in every aspect of our hearts.  The more we accept Him, the more we progress toward "intimate union with Christ".  Christ is the one who sustains us through sanctification and gives us the grace to accept Him.  He is gradually transforming us into His likeness, so that in the end, we will accept Him with everything that is in us.  Only then will we be able to fully enjoy the glory of heaven and rest in complete and total union with God.

John 14:6 ~ Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh to the Father, but by me.

Pax Christi,
~the Catholic apologist

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