The Paradox of Salvation By on December 28, 2025

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The Paradox of Salvation

Summary of Headings

The Paradox of Salvation
The Hypostatic Union
Participating in Salvation
Daily Consecration
The Role of Sacraments

The Paradox of Salvation

After such a beautiful feast day with Christmas, and in preparation for the feast of the circumcision of our Lord, and also considering that we are getting close to celebrating the new year, it's an important time to consider exactly why Christ came here on earth, and what it means for us. So, first and foremost, it's one of the greatest paradoxes that this world could possibly fathom. Actually, probably the greatest. The fact of the matter is, Christ came because we were so incapable of redeeming ourselves. We are not able to save our souls. We are not able to save our souls because original sin was such that it is impossible for us to actually do anything beneficial for our souls. That would change us from a state of sin into a state of grace. Only God can do that. Why? Because grace is the very life of God himself. And because sin is an infinite offense against God. It's an infinite offense against God. It makes sense because God is infinitely good. And so, us offending against him is infinitely evil. As such, it would be impossible for us to ever make recompense or repair the damage that is done. And yet, God asks us to do so. How can we manage that? Well, this is where the paradox comes in. Because a human committed sin, whether it's our own personal sins, or whether it's the sins of, excuse me, or whether it's original sin, it doesn't matter. Sin is an infinite offense against an infinite good God. And therefore, we are incapable of paying it back. And yet, because we are the humans who perform these sins, and we are the inheritors of original sin, we are the ones who must pay it back. Humanity must pay it back. But because it's infinite, only God is infinite, and so therefore only God can pay it back. And as such, there became a call for a great mystery, a great paradox, which Chesterton loves to marvel at, which is the hypostatic union. God and man. One person, the second person of the Blessed Trinity, came to earth and became man. He took upon himself a true humanity. Not the form of humanity, not an image of humanity. He was truly human. Body and soul, just like us. He had all the same faculties we did. All the same potential. All the same abilities. And all the same debilities as well. Voluntarily, of his own choice. The only thing in which he does not reflect us is our sinfulness. And yet, he took that upon himself too. Not by committing his own sins, but rather by taking our sins upon himself. He does not ask us to be him. He does not ask us to be God. But he gives us the possibility to share in the nature of God himself. By adoption, as St. Paul says today. Receive the adoption of sons, and because you are sons, God has sent the spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. So now that God has come to earth, and God is man, man can actually become a participant through adoption in the very nature of God himself. The infinite, the almighty, the eternal. We will never be God. We cannot be God. We cannot transform miraculously into God. But we can conform perfectly to the will of God. We can transform ourselves to the point that we lose ourselves in God. That our will becomes lost in his, and it is perfectly united to him. That we have the ability to serve him with every breath and every action. That is what he gives us through his incarnation and through his sacrifice and his death. But, as with everything that is good, there is a price. God, when he came to earth and became man, Christ did not demand that we die with him on the cross, which would have been completely justified. He did not demand that we lose our lives, sacrifice our lives, to be able to make our own little reparation for the sins that we have committed ourselves. Instead, he makes it as easy as possible to conform ourselves to the will of God, by giving us conformity. By giving us the confession. By giving us the sacraments of communion. By giving us the priesthood. By giving us the sacrifice of the Mass. He gives us every tool we could possibly ask for. Because here is another paradox that we must fight with. Christ is the only one who can save us. But we have to be participants in our own salvation. He is the only one with the grace and the strength to be able to do this, to be able to accomplish this. And yet, we are supposed to be active participants in it. We are supposed to be party with it. How is that possible? Well, this paradox is very simply answered. We must unite ourselves to Christ. We must disappear within him. We must sacrifice ourselves to him. Not on an altar, but just in our everyday actions. We must consecrate every facet of our lives. How do we accomplish that? Well, let's start with one very simple thing. When we are about to eat something, why do we say grace? First of all, we better be saying grace before meals. That's the first thing. That better be a habit that we have already. If it isn't, well, that's the first resolution to change. But why do we eat? Because God gave us hunger and our body needs it. Because of the humanity that he created, this is a necessary part of our lives. Unless we're St. Catherine of Siena and can just subsist on the Blessed Sacrament. But I can guarantee that none of us here are. So, we are called to eat. Which means it is something that God wants us to do. And instead of eating because we're hungry, or because we feel weak, or because that, you know, nos antoja, that just interests us, we should be eating because we want to gratify God. Because we want to serve God through the act of eating. When we wake up in the morning, it is by God's good grace that we are able to wake up, that we're able to open our eyes, that we have strength in our bodies, and that we are able to move. All of this is by the grace of God. So, therefore, we act upon that. We offer our day to God. We consecrate our life to God at that very moment. The morning offering is just that. We hand everything off to God, and we ask Him for help to serve Him in every aspect of our lives during the day. Something that simple. But, being human, that sounds good for about 30 seconds. And then, all of a sudden, we stub our toe, and all of those resolutions go out the window. Whatever may be the first thing that comes to mind. That gets us to stop sacrificing and consecrating ourselves to God. Whatever it may be. It may be some small thing. But whatever it is, we have to recover that as soon as possible. If we lose that moment of consecration, if we lose that moment of dedication of every action to God, at any point, through any distraction, for any motive, as innocent as it may be, we have to restore that moment as soon as possible again. This is one of the reasons why it's important to have religious articles in the house. To have a crucifix in a prominent space, in every room. So that everywhere you look, you are reminded of the fact that Christ came on this earth. He took our nature upon Himself for our benefit. He took our sins upon Himself for our benefit, to give us the chance for salvation, so that we may be able to give back to Him. So that we may be able to be perfectly united with Him. But the only way we're going to be able to do that is by uniting our everyday mundane actions in union with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and in union with the Cross. It's the only way. Because this is the paradox. Our efforts to save our soul, our efforts for perfection, our efforts for salvation, are never going to be enough. Unless they are perfectly united to God's efforts for the same purpose. Once we so -called hitch our buggy to Christ's sacrifice, all of a sudden, our little efforts, our little difficulties that we have to put up with, our little sacrifices, the little consecrations we do each and every day, or we're supposed to do each and every day, all of a sudden they become infinite in value. Not because of us, but because of Him. One beautiful image of that is during the Mass. So during the Offertory, the priest takes the wine and he puts about a third of the cruet into the chalice. And then he takes the water, and after blessing it, he puts just a drop of the water into the chalice. Or as close to a drop as he can manage. The wine represents the sacrifice of Christ. The water represents us. And the moment the water enters into the chalice with the wine, it disperses and disappears. All of a sudden there is no water anymore, it's just the wine. So it is with us. When we actually connect ourselves to the sacrifice of Christ, we disappear into His sacrifice. When we offer the merits of our lives, in union with the merits that Christ won for us through His sacrifice, and through His incarnation, then all of a sudden they become infinite in value. Only by losing ourselves, and losing all merit, and losing all effort, can we actually have something worthwhile to offer to God, and something worthwhile that will truly transform our lives. Because we can discipline ourselves, and we can control ourselves, and we can follow the straight and narrow as much as possible, but if we do not have the grace of God, it is all for naught. We will lose ourselves, and we will lose our life. We will lose our life. We will lose our souls if we do not have grace. That is the full truth of the matter. Only grace can save us. But we have to conform with grace. And the only way we can do that is through the union of our souls to the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ. The only way that we can merit in every little action is through the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ. The only way that our sins can actually help us to salvation, not that we should sin, but that our sins in the past can transform into an aid for our salvation through humility and through sacrifice, is through the grace of God. That is it. The only way that this poor matter, that is our own human nature, can actually become a saint is through the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ. And that is something we must recognize constantly. The image in the Gospel today of Simeon, giving these terrible prophecies to Our Lady, truly Our Lady's first sword of sorrow, the very first one that she suffered was at this moment, when Simeon predicted that she would suffer the sword. At that moment, according to St. Alphonsus, she received a vision of everything she was going to suffer. And not just a vision, she viscerally suffered it, pre -suffered everything she was going to suffer as the mother of our Lord Jesus Christ. At his crucifixion, when they lost him in the temple, and other moments throughout their lives. Just all of that she suffered at that very moment. That therefore is her first sorrow. And the reason that this is so important is because she's innocent. She didn't have to suffer. She didn't have to go through all that agony of having a sword of sorrows in her heart. But why did she? Because she conformed absolutely and perfectly to the will of God, regardless of what it entailed. She sacrificed herself perfectly. And that is the example we must follow regardless of everything else. Our Lord also, a sign of contradiction, a sign to be contradicted. He sacrificed himself knowing full well how many people would reject his sacrifice and reject the efforts that he was offering at that moment. He knew full well that there would be souls falling into hell despite his sacrifice. That there would be people who would be actively trying to sabotage his act of love. And we see that thoroughly in our world today. There is nothing more hated than our Lord Jesus Christ right now. How can we transform the world if we cannot transform our own souls into willing participants in the act of salvation? How can we save other souls? How can we call other souls to heaven if we ourselves have so much difficulty in being able to serve God? And just simply offering ourselves each and every day faithfully and as continually as possible, reminding ourselves as often as possible of that same oblation that we must make every morning so that we may be able to join all of our actions with the infinite works of Christ. How is it possible that souls may be saved if we ourselves are not doing everything we can to save our own souls by submitting ourselves and subordinating ourselves to the will of God and to the cross of Christ? It's easy to complain about the state of the world. It's easy to point fingers at all the problems all around us. It's easy to blame the devil. But the fact of the matter is, many times it's our own incapacity to actually step up and do what we know we are supposed to do. To join ourselves to Christ. To lose ourselves in Him. It's not an easy thing to do. But it's the only thing we can do. It's the only thing we can do. If we want happiness, if we want salvation, it comes at the cost of our freedom. That's all. There's no better investment that you could possibly make. When we look upon the sacrifice of Christ, when we look upon the sacrifice of the sorrows of Mary, we should have a very simple instinct. To give. We talk about the gifts that we give at Christmas. We talk about all the gifts we give on the face of Epiphany. We must make sure that one thing we never forget to give day in and day out is our soul and our lives to Christ. It's the only gift that really we have to give. And it's not fun. And it's not easy. And it's not what the world wants us to do. And it will make enemies of everyone around us possibly. But it is the only thing that we should do. So considering that we're getting close to New Year's, let's consider very simply what kind of resolutions we can make. Not for our health, not for our physical well -being, although those are important of course. But first and foremost, how it is we are going to start consecrating our lives in an active, constant way. So that we will be able to unite ourselves perfectly to the will of God. And by understanding and appreciating a little bit more what it is we can manage to do each day, maybe we can join ourselves perfectly to the sacrifice of Christ, make our actions infinite in His merit and in His glory, and that we may be able to, under the tutelage of our Blessed Mother, unite ourselves to the will of Christ, so that we may be eternally happy with them in Heaven. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen.