The Cycle of Redemption

I got a book for Christmas from one of the kids in the Youth Group, Dez, called Why Do Catholics Do That? by Kevin Orlin Johnson, Ph.D. One of the chapters outlines briefly, but really clearly, the entire Salvation Plan. I thought I would reproduce it here. I hope the Author doesn't mind...

Life is a lot like school. You're put there at a very early age, without being consulted about it. You get a lot of work assigned to you, and it helps you grow, but you're tested every time you turn around. Then there's the big test, and you find out whether you graduate or flunk. You see this pattern of life reflected everywhere you look, not just in your own career but also in literature like the Odyssey, in the Hindu and Buddhist scriptures, in the Koran, and even in our fairy tales and popular literature, like The Wizard of Oz. And you find the same view of the universe reflected in the Bible.
...It's the major theme of the Church's art and ceremonies, too. From the Church's point of view, this journey through life is governed by God's plan of creation, sanctification, and salvation: what you might call the "Cycle of Redemption".
...But although this cycle is mirrored in our secular art and culture, you hear all kinds of inaccurate accounts of it. It's not very well understood by the press or the broadcast media, and of course separated Christians don't see it this way. So we'll just run quickly through some of the basics here, with references to a few of the relevant Bible passages (but remember, the Church doesn't teach these points because they're in the Bible; they're in the Bible because the Church has always taught them). And we'll sample a few of the uncounted millions of words that the Church has written about the cycle during the past nineteen centuries. That should be enough to clarify the Church's art and liturgies a little, and to aim you in the right direction if you want to read more about it. [Remember, too, that this book isn't a catechism--this outline of the cycle is accurate as far as it goes, but there's a whole lot more to it than this. For the rest of the story, check the sources listed at the end of the book.]
...For each of us, the Cycle of Redemption can be summed up as birth, sin, reconciliation, death, judgement, and verdict--and grace, which pervades all of these.

Birth and the Beginning of the Cycle
We're all born into a flesh that's affected by the original sin of Adam and Eve (Gn 3). God created Adam and Eve good, in his own image and likeness (Gn 1:26). And, out of love, he gave them certain gifts that they had no right to expect, being human as they were. They got integrity, which means that their emotions (and even their passions) were controlled by their intellect--they didn't have any psychological problems, no compulsions, no shame, and no guilt. Well, they didn't have any sin yet, so they didn't have anything to be guilty about.
...They also got an intimate union with God, who lived with them visibly and on terms of friendship. And God gave them the promise of immortality, so they could enjoy this way of life forever. But to get this, they had to obey one simple little commandment: don't eat the fruit of that particular tree. God gave them everything else, but not that.
...He also gave them free will. They didn't have to sin (Gn 4:7), but the devil got to them, and they decided to go ahead with it anyway. Since their supernatural gifts were conditional on their obedience, their sin was a rejection of their innocence, wisdom, and bodily immortality. "Man too was created without corruption," as St. Methodius of Philippi wrote in about 300, "but when ... he transgressed the commandment, he suffered a terrible and destructive fall and was reduced to a state of death."

Sin, Original and Inventive
So now we're all born in original sin: not that we're punished for what Adam and Eve did, because God is not cruel, but just that we're born without those supernatural gifts that we'd otherwise have had. And this original sin also opened the gates for all subsequent sins, all of the times when people choose their own wills as opposed to God's (Romans 5:12-14). These are called actual sins, and they cut a person off from God (Is 59:1-2, for instance). And you can't save yourself on your own, so, as you remove yourself from God step by step, sin by sin, things get worse and worse for you.
...But that's not all; when you bring sin into being, you distort the whole world that much more. The story of Noah, for instance, says that "the Earth was corrupt; for all men lived corruptly on Earth," and God himself put the blame where it lies: "the Earth is full of violence because of them" (Gn 6:11-13). So, when one person sins, everybody else has to put up with the consequences, too--sin is sort of like air pollution: you can't hide it, and it ruins the quality of life everywhere, even far from its source (as in Is 24:5). We're all tied together in the great scheme of things, which explains why bad things happen to good people. If we were all the way Adam and Eve were before the Fall, there wouldn't be any death or taxes or crime or traffic jams or anything. God made the world, but we spoiled it.
...But note that original sin only changed man's state; it didn't change human nature. People were made in the image of God (Gn 1:26), and created good; people can act badly, but people are by nature good.
...You have to be perfectly clear about this one point, because a lot of Christians separated from the Church teach that humans are by nature depraved, sinful, and wicked--this is the point that all those fire-and-brimestone preachers have tried to make for the past three hundred years. But it isn't so; that's not part of Christian teaching, and you won't find anything in the Bible to back it up. It doesn't make sense, really. And it's interesting to hear what the notable anthropologist Ashley Montagu figured out on this point:
..."Perhaps the idea before all others I would like the reader to reconsider is the notion ... of innate depravity," he wrote in his book The Humanization of Man. This notion, he says,

seems to me to have been fiendishly damaging to man's growth in self-understanding...it is hardly likely to occur to anyone that the age-old doctrine of innate depravity is not only open to question but is demonstrably unsound....The need that is satisfied by the myth of innate depravity is the need for absolution from sin, for if sin is innately determined, then one can shift the burden of responsibility for it from oneself to one's innate heritage. Evil in this world is thus explained, and becomes easier to bear--and with a good conscience, much easier to do nothing about. My own interpretation of the evidence, strictly within the domain of science, leads me to the conclusion that man is born good, and is organized in such a manner from birth as to need to continue to grow and develop in his potentialities for goodness.

...It's interesting to see a man of science coming around to the Church's teaching on the matter despite what he calls "centuries of secular, religious, and 'scientific' authority" in Protestant England teaching the contrary. But no matter how you figure it, the innate goodness of human beings is a pivotal point in the cycle, because it means that people can attain Heaven, where nothing bad is allowed (Mt 5:8, Rv 21:27). So how are you supposed to overcome all of the sin in this world and end up with God, where you belong?

Grace and the Re-Sanctification of Humans
Well, have another look at Genesis. The same book that records the original sin tells that God promised a savior (Gn 3:14-16). It doesn't go into a lot of detail, but the rest of the plan is revealed little by little through the prophets of the Old Testament, like Abraham and Moses (Gn 17, Ex). Just as he'd offered a contract--a covenant--to Adam and Eve, God offered a covenant to people after the Fall, a covenant tied directly to the way the world works, to the whole pattern of health and happiness, disease and death, and so on. You obey those Commandments, God said, and I will be your God and take care of you, and I'll receive you after you die; if you deliberately reject this offer, you're on your own, and you've got to take the consequences, here and hereafter. Finally, after people had been waiting for centuries, God incarnate, Jesus of Nazareth, was born (Lk 2). He brought the Old Covenant to its fulfillment and instituted the New Covenant, which is Christianity (Mt 5:17-19).
...In only a few years of public ministry, Christ got a tremendous amount of work done. He gave us the rest of the Faith that had only been partially revealed during a thousand years of Hebrew prophecy. He established his Church to preserve his teachings intact until the end of Time and to offer them to everybody on Earth (Mt 28:18-20), he ensured that he would be sacramentally present in the Eucharist (Mt 26:26-29; Mk 14:22-25; Lk 22:14-20; Jn 6; etc., etc.), and he empowered the Church to offer that means--and the other sacraments--to keep us close to him, to give us the grace that we need to avoid sin, and to offer forgiveness, reconciliation, and a chance for atonement when we slip up (Mt 18:15-18; Jn 20:21-23).
...The point of all this is grace--getting back the closeness to God that Adam and Eve rejected. And you get it back on exactly the same condition that God laid down for the first people he offered it to: obedience. You manage the necessary reconciliation primarily through the sacrament of the same name, which is the channel for the grace that comes when you resolve to repent and you stick to your resolution, and when you ask for the help that you need to do that. (You're never tempted beyond your ability to resist, either; see 1 Cor 10:13; 2 Pt 2:9.) [To get God's forgiveness through the sacrament of Reconciliation you have to meet the same conditions as for getting forgiveness from a person. You have to acknowledge that what you did was wrong, you have to say that you're sorry, you have to resolve never to do it again, and you have to make up for it somehow. And, of course, you have to ask for forgiveness; presuming on his mercy won't cut it. So, in the Church's view, you can't figure, "Well, I'll go to confession on Saturday," and do the thing anyway. The Church also makes the important distinction--again, parallel to earthly human relations--between imperfect contrition (born of the fear of punishment and loss of reward) and perfect contrition (being sorry simply because you've offended God and not thinking of yourself). The first kind is a start, anyway. It's seen as a "beneficial sorrow", as Trent said, that prepares you for the other kind. Note, too, how important this perception of how forgiveness works is to the ideals of civilized life here and now.]
...Christ made this reconciliation possible by coming, teaching, and establishing his Church. Then he suffered and died, not for his own sins--he didn't have any--but to take our punishment on himself (Rom 5:15-21) and undo what Adam did (1 Cor 15:21-22). This symmetry between Christ and Adam is why you sometimes see a skull at the base of the cross in Crucifixion scenes; the legend arose that the hill called Golgotha, "place of the skull", marks the grave of Adam and, in a way, it does.
...But, unlike Adam, Christ rose from the dead and ascended into Heaven, to show us what we could look forward to if we kept his commandments. In other words, Christ redeemed mankind from sin. But salvation is another matter altogether, and it's a two-way street. You see, Christ's sacrifice laid the foundation of redemption, but each of us has to build on it, working out our own salvation in fear and trembling. (Check 1 Cor 3:11-15, 10:12, Phil 2:12, Mt 24:42-51--and notice, incidentally, that nobody has any assurance of salvation, any more than you know when you're going to die; see Sir 5:5-9, 1 Cor 10:1-12, etc.)
...For the Church, all of this means that this earthly life is consequential; what you do here and now influences what happens to you in the hereafter. Of course, you have to have faith--you have to believe, to know and understand, that God is God, that Jesus is Christ, and you have to hold the rest of the teachings of Christianity close to your heart. But faith alone isn't going to get you home safely after the journey of this life.
...Adam and Eve, to start with, had perfect faith. They knew God personally and talked with him, face to face, and it certainly never occurred to them to question his existence or nature. You can't get faith like that, nowadays. But their deliberate act got them (and us) thrown out of Paradise. The Jews always knew the importance of acts, too, way past Genesis. "Give alms out of your substance," the elder Tobias told his son, "for alms deliver from all sin, and from death, and will not allow a soul to go into darkness" (Tb 4:7-12). Psalms echo that same refrain, not to mention passages like Dt 30:10-14 and Lv 6:17-19. Even the stories about Satan tell how he stood next to God--again, perfect belief--but you know what happened when he willfully rebelled.
...Of course, the pattern holds true in Christ's own words. There's the Sermon on the Mount, for example (Mt 7:24-27; Lk 6:46-49), and his account of the process of judgement shows that everybody facing judgement has plenty of faith (they all say, "Lord, Lord"), but the sheep who did the right things are saved while the goats who didn't aren't (Mt 25:31-46). And in the account of the Apocalypse, the returning Christ says, "Behold, I come quickly! And my reward is with me, to render unto each one according to his works" (Rv 22:12). That's why Christianity teaches that "faith without works is dead," as St. James put it (Jas 2:17,26).

Death
Really, you could say that the major theme of the New Testament is the need to serve God faithfully, to keep up your end of the Covenant, in this life, because after you die it's too late--"after we have departed this world," explained St. Ignatius of Antioch more than eighteen hundred years ago, "it will no longer be possible to confess, nor will there be any opportunity to repent."
...Now, repentance has two parts to it: forgiveness and atonement. Again, this is reflected in common sense and in daily life. When you're hauled into civil or criminal court, the people whom you've injured can forgive you, but you still have to pay the penalty of the law--restitution and punishment are both perfectly just and reasonable. In the same way, the Church teaches that you have to be forgiven for sin and, even then, you still merit punishment for your sin, and you still have to make up for it. So "repentance...is not conducted before the conscience alone, but is to be carried out by some external act," as Tertullian phrased it, back in 203.
...You can make up for your sins, and take your licks for them, either in this life or in the next. In this life, there are sacramental penances, nowadays just token acts like the familiar "five Our Fathers and five Hail Marys" that may be prescribed after Reconciliation for remission from punishment. (In the old days, the really grave sins--the ones that get you on talk shows nowadays--used to get public penance involving things like sackcloth and ashes and standing there in front of the church for a few weeks with a sign around your neck detailing your sin, or walking to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and back.)
...Even today, the Church offers guidelines for optional sacrifices and penances, too. Almsgiving is as important now as it ever was, and so is fasting (which has the added advantage of keeping the devil at bay; see Mk 9:27-28). You can turn your need for penance into good account with things like giving up a meal during Lent and sending the money that you save to foreign missions that use it to feed the truly hungry. In fact, seasons like Lent and Advent were set up to remind us of the need for acts of penance to serve as punishment for sins and acts of charity to make up for them. Basically, the idea is to do good things to balance out all of the bad, as well as avoiding more bad things.

Judgement, Personal and General
But it's a good idea to keep repenting every day, because after you die you're subject to a personal judgement (Sir 11:26-30). Then you have to face the consequences of what you've said during your life (Mt 12:36-37, Lk 12:8-10), what you've done (Eccl 12:13-14; Mt 10:42, 13:41-43; 16:27; Mk 4:24; Jn 5:29; Rom 2:6; 2 Cor 5:10; to name a few), and what you've failed to do, like the unprofitable servant (Mt 25:24-30).
...Now this judgement takes place right after you die, but then, at the end of Time, in the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet, the dead are to be raised--souls rejoining bodies now "glorified", which is why images of Christ and the saints are so beautiful. He will come again, at that point, and then everybody has to face a general judgement (1 Cor 15:12-55, 1 Thes 4:16-18, etc.). But think about this: as soon as you die, your soul is released from your body, and it's in the dimension of the angels, outside of Time. From your point of view, then, there's no "before" and no "after", no "at the same time as", because there's no Time, period.
...So, even though your friends and relatives may go on for a while putting flowers on your grave, from your point of view outside of Time, your body has already risen and there you are. You probably won't even notice any delay. Your body can be risen in Heaven while your friends are seeing it dead on Earth, but that's not being in two places at one time, because you're outside of Time. See? (Well, it's tough. Even St. Augustine, in his Confessions, threw up his hands on this one--"Who can comprehend this even in a thought, so as to express it in a word?" he asked. "Who can explain this?" But then he did a fair job of explaining it himself. It's a minor point, anyway. You can figure it out when you get there.)
...Well then: general judgement. Christ described it (Mt 25), and it's logically necessary because our actions affect humanity as a whole; you have to wait until everything's over to see how it all comes out. This Last Judgement stands at the end of Time, and nobody can know when that's going to hit (Mt 25:13, Mk 13:32-37, Lk 12:35-48), but that doesn't seem to stop people from guessing. In fact, whenever times get rough, a lot of people figure, well, that's it, then. Which is why, in any war or economic depression, or in years like 1000, 1666, or 2000, you see so many street-corner preachers and manuscript illuminators and televangelists who come up with very creative opinions about every scary detail of the Apocalypse. That's when you get lots of people outside the Church trying desperately to figure out what's meant by The Tribulation and The Rapture and things like that.

The Verdict
So if you die with your sins forgiven and your atonement made, for instance in full sacramental communion with the Church, then, it is hoped, you go straight to Heaven, to enjoy forever the presence of God. If you died unrepentant, with unforgiven sins so serious that they imperil your soul, there's Hell, and some separated Christians try to deny its existence, but Christ himself kept describing Hell in glowing detail (Mt 8:12, 13:41-50; 25:41-46; Mk 9:43; Lk 16:19-26, etc.), so there it is.
...The Fathers of the Church have also described Hell eloquently, but one of the most moving impressions of what goes on there comes from a little girl, Lucía dos Santos, who told what the Lady of Fátima showed her:

Our kind heavenly Mother...had already prepared us by promising...to take us to Heaven. Otherwise, I think we would have died of fear and terror...Our Lady showed us a great sea of fire that seemed to be under the earth. Plunged in this fire were demons and souls in human form, like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, floating about in the conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames that issued from within themselves together with great clouds of smoke, now falling back on every side like sparks in a huge fire, without weight or equilibrium, and amid shrieks and groans and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fear. The demons could be distinguished by their terrifying and repellent likeness to unknown animals, all black and transparent.

...It makes you think. But we should note at this point that the Church has never condemned anybody, never said solemnly that so-and-so is in Hell. She can't, because that would be contrary to her mission. No Christian can, in fact, because we're supposed to judge as we would be judged. The Church can excommunicate somebody, and always has (1 Cor 5:9-12, for instance), but that's different. It means announcing publically that this person has acted so scandalously that he cannot receive the sacraments; this allows--even calls for--reconciliation. And even if the person dies excommunicated, the Church prays God to forgive him.
...Anyway, Hell is for mortal sin. But there are degrees of offense. Check out Dt 25:2, for instance, or 1 Jn 5:16-17, but St. Jerome summed it up: "There are venial sins," he explained, "and there are mortal sins. It is one thing to own ten thousand talents, another to owe but a farthing. We shall have to give an accounting for an idle word no less than for adultery. But to be made to blush and to be tortured are not the same thing....If we entreat for lesser sins we are granted pardon; but if for greater sins, it is difficult to obtain our request. There is a great difference between one sin and another." [To clarify the distinction, some catechisms point out certain criteria that a word, action, omission, thought, or desire has to meet to be a mortal sin: it has to be seriously wrong, you have to know that it is, and you have to fully consent to it. And, of course, you have to actually do it (but entertaining improper thoughts counts, too; they flash in your mind all the time, involuntarily, but you can reject them immediately). A venial sin is understood as one in which the evil wasn't seriously wrong or, even if it was, you understood it to be only slightly wrong or you didn't fully consent to it. Both kinds are willful acts that show you don't want God in your life, and the line blurs in cases like repetitive venial sins. In either case, you can't sin without knowing it or accidentally, but, here as in civil life, ignorance of the law isn't much of an excuse.] If you die with some of these minor sins on your soul, or with your sins forgiven but unatoned, there's Purgatory. Purgatory is an essential part of the Cycle of Redemption, and you can't really follow the major themes of the Bible or of Christian art if you leave it out.
...At judgement, St. Paul wrote, "the fire shall try every man's work....If any man's work burn, he shall suffer loss; but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire" (1 Cor 3:13-15). Obviously, the fire isn't in Hell, because you can't be saved through hellfire, and there's no fire in Heaven. To clarify matters further, Christ himself promised that there was a punishment that exacted what was due but wasn't endless: "Amen, I say to you, you shall not go out of there until you repay the last farthing" (Mt 5:26; see also Mt 18:23-35). He also pointed out that there's some place for forgiveness after death, not just acceptance into Heaven or condemnation (Mt 12:32). So Purgatory is for sins that don't deserve absolute punishment--little venial sins, done by people whose hearts are in the right places.
...The souls in Purgaroty suffer, all right, but they've got an advantage over us because they know that they're saved. And they're still united with us and perfectly well able to pray for us and benefit from our prayers--check 2 Mc 12:39-46, and any of the Fathers of the Church, all of whom commend the practice of praying for the repose of the dead. Those in Heaven are aware of us and of those in Purgatory, or even Hell, also (Lk 16:19-31). You can, therefore, ask your departed friends to pray for you, on the charitable assumption that they're not in Hell, just as you can ask your bodily friends to pray for you. And if you know of people from the past (and you have reasonable assurance that they died in friendship with the Church), you can ask them to pray for you, too. After all, if bodily death separates us, then Christianity as a whole doesn't make any sense.
...So there you have it, in outline, at least. It's a view of things that doesn't let you out of any responsibility, and it doesn't cut any corners about the punishment part. But even in that, it recognises your inherent dignity and insists upon your ability to fulfill the promise of that dignity. And it stresses--uniquely--the importance of the individual person, the innate goodness of the human being, the unity of all people with each other and with God, the need to draw nearer to our Creator, and the crucial importance of active good.

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Johnson, Kevin Orlin, Ph.D. Why Do Catholics Do That? A Guide to the Teachings and Practices of the Catholic Church. (Ballantine Books: New York, 1994). Chapter 6, The Cycle of Redemption: Purgatory, etc. pp 43-54.