For the first time in my life, I was overjoyed to read that a Catholic priest, the Capuchin monk Raniero Cantalamessa, proclaimed the message of gratuitous justification by faith. Raniero Cantalamessa, (www.cantalamessa.org) the preacher of the Papal household, delivered a message entitled “St Paul's Faith in Christ” on 16 December 2005 to Pope Benedict XVI and other top Vatican officials.

“Salvation is received by faith, and not for work done,” he said. “Gratuitous justification by faith in Christ is the heart of St Paul’s preaching”, and it is a shame that it is “practically absent from ordinary preaching in the Church”.

He suggested that the insistence of Catholic preaching on the “need for good works and of one’s personal contribution to salvation” was a reaction to the Protestant Reformation emphasis on faith alone. “The result is that the great majority of Catholics have lived entire lives without having ever heard a direct announcement of gratuitous justification by faith, without too many ‘buts’.”

In his letter to the Philippians, the apostle Paul warned of “the mortal danger” of putting our good works between us and Christ, as if the good works would save us.

Fr Cantalamessa called religious people to “the most necessary conversion for those that have followed Christ and have lived serving him in the Church. A conversion altogether special, which does not consist in abandoning evil, but rather, in a certain sense, in abandoning the good!”

Fr. Cantalamessa told a familiar Italian story about the shepherds near Bethlehem going to visit the newborn Jesus, each of them trying to outdo the others with the beauty of the gifts they offered. One poor shepherd had nothing and was ashamed.

“Mary didn't know how to receive all of them, for she had the Child in her arms. So, seeing the poor shepherd with his hands free, she gave him Jesus to hold. Having empty hands was his fortune, and on another level, it will also be our fortune,” he concluded.

Joe Mizzi

ATTARD