The Christian life of grace became one of several «options» available for human life.
Not exact matches
Having shared the great
grace of baptism and having been appropriately catechized into «the mysteries,» evangelical Catholics understand, appreciate, and
live the biblical truth
of Christian vocation as given by St. Paul: «Now there are varieties
of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties
of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties
of working, but it is the same God who inspires them all in every one.
«It is an electric reality in the New Testament, an indispensable ingredient in the
Christian faith and one
of God's chief means
of grace in our
lives.»
This
grace of Christian marriage is a fruit
of Christ's cross, the source
of all
Christian life.»
Uh...
of course we
Christians tweet words
of hope, love, joy,
life, peace, and
grace.
Given the centrality
of grace in the
Christian life, how should
Christians respond to those who have been publicly disgraced, and how to we avoid appealing to
grace as a way
of letting abusive or dangerous people off the hook?
First, there are those who believe that the Tendenz
of Camus» works moved steadily toward
Christian conversion, or at least toward a genuine appreciation
of a
life of grace in a broken world.
Scott's attempt to link Camus with Tillich's «absolute faith,» so as to demonstrate that «perhaps» Camus did not
live completely outside
of what
Christians mean by
grace, is unconvincing.
A congregation that is able to
live simply and faithfully out
of the
Christian story is a gift
of grace, but that gift must be sustained by some remarkable social creativity.
Whether this immediacy
of God was described in Pauline terms as God's Spirit, carrying the divine presence and power into the
Christian's inner
life, (I Corinthians 3:16) or in Johannine terms, as God himself dwelling in his people, (John 14:23; I John 4:12) the accessibility
of the divine
grace and help was everywhere proclaimed.
- to affirm - that the essence
of Christian life is not focused on sexual orientation, but how one
lives by
grace in relationship with God, with compassion toward humanity;
This is both the easiest and the most difficult, for it is the holy art
of living as
Christians in the
grace of God.
Religious language is also historical and evolutionary: it depicts the people
of God as on a journey to the holy land, the Church as a mystical body evolving toward the fullness
of Christ, the liturgy as consisting
of cycles
of growth, the
Christian life as an exodus,
grace as growth in the fullness
of Christ, dogma as evolving, etc..
A theory
of the
Christian life that provides a reference for understanding one's own faith journey, adapting the means
of grace to resource it, and to aid others in entering and negotiating that same journey.
Catholic laymen must take up their place in
life and face their family, their love, their children (who perhaps do not always come up to their expectations), their professional duties which grow ever more irksome and their duties as citizens; in doing so they will meet situations in which, because they reflect on their faith, they will know how to behave as
Christians living in the
grace of God, the light
of the gospel and the imitation
of the crucified Christ.
We will here not discuss in detail in what sense and with what reservations the liturgy is to be called the first and neces - sary source
of the
Christian life and spirit (Decree on Priestly Formation, Optatam Totius, art. 16 Decree on the Appropriate Renewal of the Religious Life, Perfectae Caritatis, art. 6), of grace (Constitution on the Liturgy, art. 10) and the summit to which all the action of the Church is directed (ibid., art. 10), and how all other Christian activity and prayer has its origin and goal in the litu
life and spirit (Decree on Priestly Formation, Optatam Totius, art. 16 Decree on the Appropriate Renewal
of the Religious
Life, Perfectae Caritatis, art. 6), of grace (Constitution on the Liturgy, art. 10) and the summit to which all the action of the Church is directed (ibid., art. 10), and how all other Christian activity and prayer has its origin and goal in the litu
Life, Perfectae Caritatis, art. 6),
of grace (Constitution on the Liturgy, art. 10) and the summit to which all the action
of the Church is directed (ibid., art. 10), and how all other
Christian activity and prayer has its origin and goal in the liturgy.
Christians do not
live under the condemnation
of the law; we
live under the
grace of God through Jesus Christ.
But neither really appreciated Wesley's vision
of God's
grace bearing us forward in the
Christian life.
In the
Christian story, we discover a fiercely loyal God who creates, loves,
lives, dies,
lives again, and calls teens into the passionate
grace of the baptized
life.
Nevertheless, today, too, a
Christian must continue to pray and to remain in
living contact with his God through the spirit
of grace.
Real
Christians do nt have to sit on a soap box preaching about the fires
of hell, because they try to
live their
lives in the
grace of God, and hopefully show the peace and joy that can bring to others.
We
Christians must endure the disappointment
of life in faith and hope, in
living personal prayer to God in the
grace of Christ, and in willingly suffering all this misery.
For we begin to be
Christians living in the
grace of God only if we are honest even when it is no longer the best policy, and we exercise our true apostolate precisely when we appear to be stupid and without much social prestige.
This too was a common emphasis in the faith
of Reformation churches as M. E. Osterhaven explains: «Scripture presents a unified message concerning God's
grace made manifest in Jesus Christ and the
Christians call to
live unto him.
His
Grace Bishop Angaelos added: «I am thankful that the visit was fruitful and gave His Holiness an overview
of the diverse and dynamic role
of Coptic
Christians across Britain who endeavour to
live faithfully according to their
Christian principles, while being fully integrated into their surrounding community.
However differently experienced, the gift
of grace is to be preserved and cultivated throughout the
life of the
Christian.
Unless these clearly powerful and increasingly well defined influences on the
lives of church members are met by equally powerful and well - defined influences
of grace for
living the
Christian life, the role
of clergy is in danger
of being reduced to the role
of chaplains, summoned for brief, emergency ministrations to a
life cycle unfolding in complete isolation from the
life of faith.
Let us illustrate this point
of view toward which our whole discussion has been moving by looking briefly at the sacraments
of the Church, the
Christian meeting
of death, and the
Christian life of active service as expressions
of the way which is enclosed in the
grace of this kind
of community.
Pius XI added, in Casti Conubii (1930), «Even though
Christian parents are in the state
of grace themselves, they can not transmit this
grace to their children; in fact, natural generation
of life has become a way
of death, the way by which original sin passes to children.»
As early as the second century,
Christians gathered for worship at the tombs
of the martyrs, celebrating the power
of God's
grace in the
lives of these faithful men and women.
Secondly, we have come to significant agreement (although surely with differences remaining) on profound theological issues: on our justification by faith through
grace in Jesus Christ; on the proper relationship between Scripture and tradition; on the communion
of saints and the universal call to holiness; and on the role
of Mary in the
life of the
Christian and
of the church.
Perhaps the Eastern
Christian Tradition can provide a way to preserve the material blessings
of Western technology and scientific insights without losing the intuitive spiritual wisdom gained earlier when Religious Traditions experienced
Grace more deeply by their participation in the natural rhythms
of life.
The
life of Christians who, by the
grace of God, have responded to that call is to be a
life of holiness, which is to say a
life of sanctification.
Lutherans speak
of «growth in
grace and faith,» with effects in
Christian living; eternal
life is, biblically speaking, «unmerited «reward,»» a fulfillment
of God's promise to the believer.
All
Christian claims that Judaism confesses a God
of law in the formal / legal sense in contrast to a «
Christian God»
of grace are based on false views
of fulfillment; such views not only damage
Christian - Jewish relations but are devastating for the
life of the church itself.
Our problem is to interpret the moral responsibility
of the
Christian in relation to the faith that God's
grace is operative creatively and redemptively in
life.
To enter the kingdom
of God the
Christian way is to make such a commitment to Christ that, by the
grace of God that has come to us in Christ and the pattern
of life put before us by Jesus,
life is transformed.
- to affirm that the essence
of Christian life is not focused on seixual orientation, but how one
lives by
grace in relationship with God, with compasision toward humanity;
«28 Another theologian summarizes the
Christian use
of the term: «
Grace is the supreme causal agency by which
Christian life everywhere is evoked, sustained, and augmented.
Here, however, I shall run the risk
of treating the standpoint as a whole, My thesis is that all the neo-orthodox thinkers neglect a fundamental
Christian insight into the meaning
of life within the
grace of God.
In our formulation
of the
Christian life we have to do justice both to the
grace and to the growth, for whatever progress in the
life of love is possible, it is always progress within the structure
of man's relationship to the creative and redemptive working
of God.
The book
of Acts really teaches us that it's all too easy — even with all the gifts
of grace we have received — for the
Christian community to almost entirely fall our
of step with that freedom and virtually abandon the message
of life (Paul talks in Galatians about how he stood alone for the Gospel).
While maintaining a lively understanding
of the
Christian's need for
grace, Methodists spread Wesley's Arminian emphasis on the place
of human will and responsibility in the religious
life — touching and changing almost all other Protestant denominations in America.
Sadly these misunderstandings about nature and
grace distort people's understanding
of Christian life, raising questions such as: Is
grace at odds with our humanity?
But it is precisely the
graces of Christian discipleship, beginning with baptism, that enable us to
live as
Christians should.
But this pushes asidetwo thousand years
of Christian tradition that insists that man must
live by the vision
of God, a participation in divine
life existing within his being by
grace or else end up with a profound loss.
The purpose
of Christian spiritual formation is growth in
grace, or in capacity to
live in faithful response to God's love.
It does not attempt to analyze the infinite mystery
of God's
grace, on the one hand, or on the other, to tell
Christians precisely and legalistically what to do in all the events
of life.
In our effort thus far to describe and illustrate the role
of the imagination in preaching, we have considered two aspects
of its power: the investiture
of the
Christian moral vision with such sensibility as sometimes enables it to enclose within the meaning
of the Word
of God the subtler perditions that stalk men's
lives; and the power to behold, and in part reenact, the architectonic structure
of grace that is the subliterary matrix out
of which the witness emerges.
As a minority group
living in a hostile culture, members
of the early
Christian churches were in no position to identify the bestowal
of God's
grace and blessing with national peace and prosperity.