The Christian message presupposes that we are sinners in a world needy of salvation. Paul puts the message in its most primitive form: "I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures; that he was buried; that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures; and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve" (I Cor. 15:5-5).

Salvation means not only having a change of heart in which one repents of having done evil. This is the beginning. But, like any beginning, one has to go on from there. Salvation is an ongoing process of growth. There is the salvation that comes when one initially accepts faith in Jesus Christ and is baptized. There is the more profound salvation that comes when one has developed the spiritual gifts given in baptism over the long course of a Christian life seriously pursued.

The Kingdom of God, Jesus said, "is like a grain of mustard seed" (Mark 4:51), the tiniest of seeds. The first stage of the process is to put the mustard seed into the ground where it germinates. Afterwards, it pushes a shoot through the earth and starts to grow. Later, it puts forth branches and leaves and becomes a tree. It is only at the end of the process, and not without a certain amount of pruning, that the tree bears fruit, and we observe with satisfaction that the seed has at last become something worthwhile. In similar fashion, the process of salvation is going on all the time, and although, for a Christian, it starts with faith in Jesus Christ and repentance, it has to go through a long period of growth before the follower of Christ becomes mature and "equipped for every good work" (II Tim. 5:17).

The Christian idea of salvation has some similarities to the idea of liberation in the Eastern religions. All the religions of the world are in agreement about the fact that the human family is in a serious predicament, even if there are a variety of opinions as to how it got there. This predicament is identified by a need for escape from the circle of ever-recurring evil habits with their ensuing misery. The Christian tradition regards the cure of this malaise as a return to intimacy with God, which is the source of human wholeness. This intimacy was lost to the human race through a corporate fault symbolized by the story of the fall of Adam and Eve, called original sin.

Whether you think that the restoration of this intimacy has to take place over many lives, or simply in one lifetime, everybody agrees that it has to be done. According to all the great religions of the world, the essential work of every human life is to prepare for union with the ultimate reality.

We believe, as Christians, that Jesus Christ, by means of his sacrificial suffering and death on the cross, brought salvation and liberation to the whole world. At the same time, we believe that Christ's passion, death, and resurrection is an eternal event. Just because it happened in chronological time does not mean that anyone-past, present, or future-is excluded from its benefits. In this connection, the Catholic Church teaches that it was in view of the foreseen merits of Christ that Mary was preserved from the limitations of original sin. In other words, because of the redeeming death of Christ, but before it took place, Mary received the unique grace of coming into the world without the limitations of original sin.

In the account of creation and the fall in the Book of Genesis, the first man and woman were promised a savior. Revelation thus teaches that the grace of salvation was always present in the world because God intended in chronological time to sacrifice his only-begotten Son to guarantee it. The only way that he could sacrifice his Son was by allowing him to assume a human nature which could suffer and die. From the beginning of time all who were saved and sanctified have received whatever grace they have received through the redeeming death of the Son of God. His sacrifice is an eternal event, and its fruits are available at every point of time.

Paul says that anyone who truly seeks God, believing that God will reward him, will receive the gift of grace. In other words, when anyone follows his conscience, in which the law of God is written, at some point he will meet the grace of Christ, since it is offered to everyone of good will. Whether he knows the historical Jesus or not, he will come to know Christ as the eternal Word of God, the Cosmic Christ, who "enlightens everyone" (John 1:9) and through whom "all things were made" (John 1:5). He will come to know the Christ who is in the inmost conscience of every man and woman, waiting to manifest himself to them in the degree that they follow the promptings of their conscience. Whoever attains to grace, attains the grace of Christ.

The great gift which Christ won through his sacrificial death is intimacy and oneness with the Father. On the day of his resurrection he said triumphantly to Mary Magdalene, "Go to my brethren and say to them that I am ascending to my Father and your Father" (John 20:17). That is the great good news! The experience of intimacy with God, symbolized in Genesis by God's daily walk with Adam and Eve in the evening air (Gen. 3:8), is now available once again to the whole human family.

The gates of heaven closing after Adam and Eve is a vivid symbol of the ripe fruits of original sin, which are man's alienation from God and from himself. Adam and Eve lost what they were intended to have, namely, intimacy with God, which is the only true source of security. When intimacy with God was gone, they and their progeny could only search for security "down the labyrinthine ways of time."*

Christ's coming and his sacrifice have taken away the guilt of all men and women, so that the capacity to return to the state of human wholeness has been made accessible to the entire human family regardless of time. God chose to atone for the sin of the world by sending his own Son, who on account of his divine dignity, could release the human family not only from any amount of guilt that it had or might incur, but at the same time catapult it into the possibility of a higher level of intimacy with God than it had before.

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*Francis Thompson, "The Hound of Heaven," in The World's Great Catholic Poetry, ed. Thomas Walsh (New York: Macmillan, 1947), p. 327.

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Excerpted from The Heart of the World by Fr. Thomas Keating

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