Works of Faith

Saint Paul writes, "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God - not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life" (Eph. 2:8-10). The commentary also goes on to say, "We are saved by God's grace through faith in Jesus Christ. We are saved not by doing good works but in order to do good works. Our salvation is God's gift to us; how we live is our gift to God" (Catholic Youth Bible, 1389). Paul also talks about our faith and works because both go hand-in-hand. Without faith our works are dead so we do need both. As we have been establishing, it takes work to make our faith grow and each one of us needs to do our part. Our faith is a gift from God. We have been saved by Jesus' death on the cross and his resurrection and these gifts are given to us to be lived and shared. I always go back to the Benedictine motto, "Ora et Labora," "Prayer and Work." You cannot separate the two, we need one with the other. To be effective in our work we need to pray. The same is true with the works of faith. To be effective in our faith we need to do the work. Like we just read, we are not saved by our good works, but we are saved to do good works. Again, this is our responsibility! God gives us the grace and tools that we need, it is up to us to put them into practice. Let us continue to pray for a renewed faith, but pray that we may have the grace to undertake the work that needs to be done so that we can live our faith to the fullest. God Bless You!!!