By RAYMOND DE SOUZA, KM
Part 9
In his book Crossing the Threshold of Hope, Pope John Paul II made a few interesting statements about Islam, which I quote in the following two paragraphs:
“Whoever knows the Old and New Testaments, and then reads the Koran, clearly sees the process by which it completely reduces Divine Revelation. It is impossible not to note the movement away from what God said about Himself, first in the Old Testament through the Prophets, and then finally in the New Testament through His Son. In Islam all the richness of God’s self-revelation, which constitutes the heritage of the Old and New Testaments, has definitely been set aside.
“Some of the most beautiful names in the human language are given to the God of the Koran, but He is ultimately a God outside of the world, a God who is only Majesty, never Emmanuel, God-with-us.
Islam is not a religion of redemption. There is no room for the Cross and the Resurrection. Jesus is mentioned, but only as a prophet who prepares for the last prophet, Muhammad. There is also mention of Mary, His Virgin Mother, but the tragedy of redemption is completely absent. For this reason, not only the theology but also the anthropology of Islam is very distant from Christianity.”
It is evident the Pope flatly denied the affirmation commonly spread today that “Muslims and Christians adore the same God.” No, we don’t. Those false ecumenists who insist on saying this totally miss the point, even if they are high-ranking personalities in the Church.
These two concepts suffice to set in motion our study of Redemption, which shows how Islam is very distant from Christianity: 1) God is never Emmanuel, God-with-us. 2) Islam is not a religion of Redemption.
So, what is Redemption, then? What is the reality that makes Islam so distant from us Christians, making it unable to save souls in itself?
The Redemption of mankind performed by Jesus Christ is the single event that divides history into two halves: BC and AD (BC, “Before Christ,” and “Anno Domini,” the year of the Lord in Latin). It can be summarized in these simple statements, which every Christian must believe and affirm by the very fact that he is Christian:
1) Our Lord Jesus Christ, by His life and by His sufferings which ended in His death on the cross, made satisfaction for our sins and merited for us grace and eternal life.
2) Christ offered Himself on the cross as a true and proper sacrifice.
3) Christ died for all without exception, not only for those who are saved.
4) In His soul, He descended to the dead.
5) In His body, He rose again on the third day, ascended into Heaven into divine glory, and thence sent the Holy Spirit upon the Church.
This being said, let us now get down to some details. This is a most important subject for faithful Catholics today, especially because of the false ecumenism that suggests that as long as people believe in a God and in love (whatever these concepts may mean) we are all together on the road to salvation.
Two concepts must be defined right at the beginning: Atonement and Redemption. Literally, Atonement is the action whereby one makes reparation for an offense. It consists in undoing an insult or injury, or in causing offender and offended to be again at one, i.e., to be reunited in affection (at-one-ment). Applied to the work of Christ, the Atonement means:
a) The satisfaction which Christ made to God for the insults offered to Him by the sin of Adam and the sins of all mankind, and b) the reconciliation between God and man which He effected by it.
Now, Redemption is the deliverance from captivity, effected by purchase. In the Middle Ages, St. Peter Nolasco founded a religious order specifically dedicated to redeem Christians enslaved by Muslims. They paid the required price for their redemption, and sometimes even took their places in captivity. Applied to the work of Christ, Redemption means: a) the deliverance of man from slavery to Satan and from the debt of eternal punishment incurred by sin, and b) his restoration to the dignity of the divine sonship.
Either term, Atonement and Redemption, therefore, may be used to denote the entire saving work of our Lord Jesus Christ. That is why Pope John Paul II stated that Islam is not a religion of Redemption, which means that, basically, they do not profit from Redemption by Baptism and the true faith in Jesus Christ.
We can consider the Redemption of mankind from sin by Jesus’ sacrifice from several points of view, as for instance, if sin is a fall, redemption is raising up the fallen person; if sin is illness, redemption is a cure; if sin is a debt, redemption is payment, purchase, ransom; if sin is a fault, redemption is atonement; if sin is slavery, redemption is liberation; if sin is an offense against God, redemption is satisfaction, propitiation, reconciliation with God.
In order to share the fruit of Redemption, Jesus commanded the apostles to go to all nations to preach to them everything He had taught, and to baptize them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. In this way, the nations would gain their liberation from original sin and open their souls to Baptism and the other sacraments He instituted in His Church.
A Missionary Church
That is why the Catholic Church has over the centuries sent missionaries to all countries of the world to convert them to the fullness of Truth. It is unfortunate that in so many places the missionary efforts have slowed down and even stopped, for the sake of political correctness and “respect for other people’s religions,” as if Jesus had said anything about that. In many places today, the Church has ceased to be a Missionary Church to become a Maintenance Church.
The mystery of Christ’s death and Resurrection is also known as the “Paschal Mystery,” because the Blood of Christ, the new Lamb of God, delivers us from sin, in fulfillment of the Paschal (Passover) Lamb which was sacrificed and eaten by the Jews at the annual commemoration of that first Passover in Egypt, when God “passed over” and thus spared the houses marked with the blood of the lamb (Exodus 12; John 1:29; 1 Cor. 5:7).
As Moses led the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt under the Pharaoh to the Promised Land, so Christ the King of Israel leads His People from the slavery of sin under the Devil to the Kingdom of Heaven in eternity.
Next article: Why is Jesus the “Savior”?
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(Raymond de Souza KM is available to speak at Catholic events anywhere in the free world in English, Spanish, French and Portuguese. Please email SacredHeartMedia@Outlook.com or visit www.RaymonddeSouza.com or phone 507-450-4196 in the United States.)
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