Assurance
ASSURANCE
BASIC R.C. BELIEF Assurance of salvation is presumption, by which one expects God to do things He does not will to do. This is a mortal sin.
From WHAT EXTREME UNCTION DOES FOR THE SICK by E.F. Miller, C.SS.R., “I am not so proud as to believe that the legs of my soul are stout enough merely through the training I have given them to carry me over the last peaks that stand between me and eternity. I may be scared out of my wits by the prospect of standing all alone (I’m sure there won’t be anyone to lean upon or hide behind) before his royal majesty the King of Heaven. His eyes will search out every corner of my soul, looking for the cobwebs of sin that I may not have been sufficiently careful to pull down.”
A very complimentary article in THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER stated of Cardinal Krol, “He doesn’t have to worry about food, clothing, shelter. What are his worries? `My salvation, getting to Heaven’ says the Prelate.”
POST VATICAN II On his 80th birthday, the late Pope Paul VI said, “Death holds motives for apprehensive concern by reason of the imminent judgement of God.”
A recent study by the Knights of Columbus has the following: “To the question, `Are you redeemed?’ we may all answer `Yes.’ To the question, `Are you saved?’ there is no answer. Salvation in this sense means being assured of a place in Heaven. Man has always wanted to be sure of that; but neither faith, nor `conversion’, nor anything in the ordinary course of events can give him that answer. Only after being judged by God will he know whether he has been found worthy of Heaven.”
CHRISTIAN COMMENT A Christian has assurance because he is scripturally grounded in the perfect work of Jesus Christ as his salvation (I John 5:13; I Thessalonians 1:5).