My Grandfather on my Father’s side was born in the small Southern Italian village of Agnone. If you go there today you would ask yourself, why would anyone choose to leave this paradise? It is a beautiful place with stunning countryside. The town itself has a old section reflective of long ago and a more modern area. It is set up on a high hill overlooking a fertile valley. I know when I visited there the first time I was mystified why my Grandfather voluntarily left leaving it all behind. My Grandmother and Aunt remained in Agnone until her husband was able to have a life established in America then sent for them. What I came to realize is that Southern Italy in general, and Agnone specifically, in the early 20th Century was in very bad shape financially. Work was scarce and it was difficult to support a family. The United States was looking for workers as industry was booming. So this was the pull that brought my Grandfather to the States.
My Father was born here in 1921 and served in the Navy during World War II, fighting on the Islands of Tinian and Saipan in the South Pacific. When he returned he began the Marion Tinsmith and Roofing business. He rehabbed a three floor apartment building in Jersey City, NJ and began a family with my Mom. We lived on the middle floor and my parents rented out the other two levels. My Father never gave up. He worked hard to succeed in his business and to raise a family. He sent the three of us to Catholic grammar school and high school though the public schools would have saved him a lot of money. He made a path to success for me and my brothers. He was loyal, responsible and lived an honest life even in a neighborhood that had some similarities to The Sopranos. He retired at 65 and 6 months later was dead from Lung Cancer. I inherited a lot from him, including his temper. The word I would use to best describe my Father was persistent. He never gave up in moving in the direction that he thought was right.
Saint Paul in today’s first reading in his letter to the Colossians speaks of perseverence:
God has now reconciled you
in the fleshly Body of Christ through his death,
to present you holy, without blemish,
and irreproachable before him,
provided that you persevere in the faith,
Christ gave up His life and suffered in His passion so that we could be reconciled, rejoined, in God. To be once more in the Father’s good graces. And if we accept this offer of faith through God’s grace, we have been promised that we will stand before the Lord without blemish. Without sin. But there is a condition. We cannot just say we accept Jesus Christ as our savior then fall back into the behaviors that existed before committing ourselves to a life in Christ. The Colossians were once of “hostile of minds because of their evil deeds” but now are cleansed in Christ. But it is not one and done. Paul tells them here that they must persevere. Never give up the fight.
Now this goes against the Protestant idea of Once Saved, Always Saved. Also called Eternal Security. This doctrine says that once you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior, there is nothing that you can do that would cause you to lose your salvation. If Hitler accepted Christ as a young boy, he would still be going to heaven even after his atrocities and his final dance with Eva Braun in the bunker. Charles Templeton was a leading Christian Evangelist in the 1940s and 50s. By the time he died in 2001, he was a staunch atheist. So is this idea of Once Saved Always Saved biblical? Well, St. Peter didn’t think so. In 2 Peter 2:20 he states:
If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and are overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning.
WORSE off then they were at the beginning. So according to the first Pope, we can lose our salvation by returning to the sinful life that existed before we pledged ourselves to the saving power of Christ. And in Matthew 24:13 we read, “But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved” So we MUST persevere in Christ if we are to dwell with Him thru eternity. If perseverance was not a necessity why couldn’t the martyred saints merely have denied Christ to save themselves? After all, they had previously pledged their allegiance to Him. That should have been sufficient for the remainder of their lives.
The Oxford Dictionary seems to get it when they define perseverance as: persistence in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success. It is easy to SAY you follow Christ. But to persist in your belief? That is a whole ‘nuther thing. Paul, Peter and Our Lord tell us to run the race. Finally, in Hebrews 12:1-3 we are told this, in no uncertain terms:
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith”.
We do this not just for ourselves but also as a model for those who follow us. As you know, I love songs that illustrate the point. This week it is a song called “Find Us Faithful” by Steve Green
