I will say with 100% certainty that every convert that I know (perhaps up to 100 of them) have each said that Catholicism has enriched their marriage. The difference of course is that Protestantism sees matrimony as regulated by the State as a rite situated in the created order, but the Catholic Church teaches that matrimony was raised to the dignity of sacrament and that it pertains to the supernatural order. This places holy matrimony under the watch of the Church just like baptism or the Holy Eucharist.

This also entails that there is explicit theology about marriage and explicit rules about marriage in canon law. It’s not up to the local pastor to use his view of the Bible to decide if a couple can marry. Instead, canon law is used to determine everything – just like the other sacraments.

Yet this is a rather stuffy explanation. What you probably want to know is how will Catholicism change your life. Right?

Here are five ways in which it will change your marriage for the better:

1. You will be going to confession regularly and so will your spouse. Guess what? Your spouse will be confessing all the sins that they commit against you: losing tempers, complaining, not taking care of the children, fighting in front of the children, complaining about money, arguing over budgets . . . you get the picture. Meanwhile, you’ll be doing the same. The priest will be in your grill (and your spouse’s grill) all the time about it. He will know the details you reveal and he will begin challenging you (and your spouse) about it. Suddenly you have secret referees that are challenging you to be a better parent and spouse. Whenever I go to confession, I usually come out thinking, “I need to go apologize to Joy about that last week.” And my wife does the same when she goes to confession.

2. You will cease from contraception and other illicit actions. You marriage will be rightfully ordered to the procreative act. Intimacy will not be just for pleasure. This may strike you as a negative, but trust me, it will radically improve your marriage. Just ask anyone on CtC or any convert who lives the Faith.

3. You may start having more children. The old adage that you cannot take anything to heaven isn’t entirely true. You can, by the grace of God, take your children with you. Your portfolio, your house, your car, your boat, your everything will cease to be. But children are forever. Their souls will never be snuffed out. The procreative power is very powerful!

4. You marriage will become your vocation. I don’t want to make a caricature here, but my experience is that Protestants are usually very interested in their vocation being related to a role at Church – Sunday school teacher, women’s ministry coordinator, small group leader, music minister, pastor’s wife, youth minister, deacon, elder, etc. For Catholics, it is commonly understood that your vocation is marriage, which is to say, your vocation is to your spouse and children. I really do think the Catholic way expresses the Biblical notion of matrimony. Take this verse as an example:

“Yet she shall be saved through child bearing; if she continue in faith and love and sanctification with sobriety.” (1 Timothy 2:15, D-R)

As a Protestant, I didn’t know what that meant. Yet if our salvation depends on faith and works, and a married woman’s vocation (the way she primarily expresses her good works) is through being a wife and mother – then this verse makes perfect sense. On judgment day, Christ will judge a mother primarily on her work as a mother, not on her small group Bible study. The same goes for husbands.

5. Fifth and last, your children will be united to your devotion as parents. Catholicism doesn’t have the divide of “Big Church” and “Children’s Church.” The Holy Mass is for everyone. This means that babies, toddlers, children, and teens sit with their parents. They have years of seeing dad kneel, fold his hands, pray, genuflect, receive Communion, etc. It makes for a strong family.

Godspeed,

Taylor Marshall, Ph.D.

PS: This is the last one for the “Becoming Catholic Series.” Please take time to look at the other posts: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, and part 5.

Now most Protestants have seen it in movies. You go into the wooden box, a door slides behind a screen, and the Catholic says, “Bless me Father for I have sinned, etc.”

Okay, that’s pretty much how it begins, but let’s look at it from a devotional point of view – how it really goes for a Catholic.

Ideally, a Catholic makes a nightly examination of conscience every evening. This means that he prays to the Holy Spirit in order to remember his faults during the past day. He then prays an act of contrition at this moment with the intent of confessing these faults in confession.

Before entering the confessional (that is, the box), he prays to the Holy Spirit (and other saints) that he might make a good confession and be given the gift of true repentance and contrition. My practice is to ask the Holy Spirit for the light to see all my sins. Then I ask the Blessed Virgin Mary to obtain for me the grace to be truly sorry for my sins. You see, confession isn’t just about forgiveness of sins, it’s also about growing in sacramental grace.

In the confessional, there is sometimes the option to go behind the screen or face to face (I always choose the screen). The priest will recite a prayer and then you say, “Bless me Father for I have sinned, it has been # weeks since my last confession and I accuse myself of the following sins.”

Next you list all your sins in kind and number. If the priest cannot hear you or understand you, he’ll stop and ask questions. When you get to the end, you say, “For these sins and all those that I cannot remember, I humbly repent and ask for absolution, counsel, and penance.”

The priest will then give you some advice or encouragement. He may make a general judgment that your struggles are related to a common vice. If you cry, he will comfort you. If you are scared to confess a sin, you say, “Father, I’m afraid to confess something.” He’ll walk you through it. If you are unsure if something was a sin or not, you ask him and talk it out. It’s very pastoral and safe. Then the priest gives you your penance. The penance is the sign that you wish to start a new life in Christ – that you’re going to make a change. The penance also shows a willingness to make reparation for the harm you’ve caused (for example, to return stolen money or apologize to a wounded spouse). A common penance is “Three Hail Mary’s” or “a decade of the Rosary” or “Three Our Fathers so that you’ll grow in the virtue of temperance.”

Then the priest says, “Now please make an Act of Contrition.” This is a prayer you say to God out loud and the priest listens to you say it. It’s proof to him that you really are sorry for your sins and not just playing “pinball Catholicism” (click here to see what I mean by that).

The Act of Contrition goes like this:

O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins, because I dread the loss of heaven, and the pains of hell; but most of all because they offend Thee, my God, Who are all good and deserving of all my love.

I firmly resolve, with the help of Thy grace, to sin no more and avoid the near occasions of sin. Amen.

Then the priest gives you absolution: “I absolve you of your sins in the name of the Father and of Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

The priest then tells you to go in peace and usually asks you to say a prayer for him.

After that you, leave the confessional and go into the church where you pray your penance quietly and pray about anything else that is on your heart.

That’s confession. It is certainly one of my top three favorite things about Catholicism.

Godspeed,

Taylor Marshall

PS: If you would like to read Parts 1-4 of “Becoming Catholic” please click here.

For a Protestant looking in from the outside, it might appear that Catholics are mechanical about their devotional life. I remember seeing Catholicism as a giant machine with handles and levers. Catholics scurried around it pulling levers and pulling knobs hoping that grace would come out. As a Protestant, I thought that being a “good Catholic” was like working a soft-serve ice cream machine or a soda fountain. If you learned how to use the system, you can get grace and hopefully earn salvation.

More accurately, I suspected that the Catholic salvation was more like a pinball machine. The ball was grace and Catholics were constantly mashing the buttons to keep the flippers moving and the ball in play. However, all pinball players know that eventually the ball gets past you and your game is over. How could Catholics honestly believe that human effort could keep the ball in play for decades and decades of human life? Why can’t they just trust in the finished work of Christ and relax…?

So now that I’m Catholic, am I playing salvation pinball?

I don’t think so. Salvation only appears mechanistic to Protestants because they haven’t experienced it. For example, the sacrament of Penance is not at all like getting your time card punched. There is a real human being behind that screen! He asks questions. He challenges you. He loves Christ. You love Christ. You’re both praying that you will grow in Christ. It’s extremely intimate and the opposite of mechanical.

Take the Holy Mass. Most Protestants are not familiar with liturgical worship. What they see seems robotic. But when you know it, it’s like an elegant waltz. You can even do it with your eyes closed. If you don’t know how to waltz and you’ve never seen it, one might look at people waltzing and say: “This is so hard and those people are slaves to this music. How could they be enjoying this?”

Yet the couple might be having the dance of their lives…the formal aspect makes it all the more intimate.

All important things in our lives are ritualized – Sunday dinner, weddings, sports, and anniversaries come to mind. The repetition makes them more important and more intimate.

In order to understand Catholic devotion, don’t think of it as a machine…think of it as a mother. Mothers and babies seem to have a mechanical relationship. Baby sucks milk from breast. Spits up. Mommy cleans it. Baby cries. Mommy bounces. Baby poops. Mommy changes the diaper. Repeat cycle, non-stop, for nine months. But that is not all there is. They are the cues. There are the moments when the mommy gazes with love on the nursing baby. The nursing baby caresses the hair of the mother. The mother smiles and talks to the baby during the diaper change. It’s all very loving and intimate. To an outsider looking in from the outside, it could appear like an endless hell. But ask any old lady and she will tell you that those were great days. And all of us are grateful for the maternal care. None of us think of mom as “mechanical.”

Of course, you won’t ever experience this if you don’t become Catholic so you won’t ever really understand. I hope that if you’re reading this, you’ll take a moment and pray to Christ and ask Him to give you special gifts of the Holy Spirit. You have to deal with the Catholic question, so you be sure that you pray to Christ at every step of the way.

Please read Taylor’s Parts 1, 2, and 3 on “Becoming Catholic” by clicking here.

ad Jesum per Mariam,

Taylor Marshall

For others the most difficult part of Catholicism is losing their job or their career if they are employed by a Protestant congregation. I’ve been there, too. Perhaps I’ll share some personal thoughts on that in the days to come. Today, I want to focus on family. I get emails and phone calls from Protestants considering conversion. I’d say that most of them experience difficulties with their families and usually with their spouses.

I’ve also noticed that some people have difficulty with how their parents will perceive them if they are Catholics. Cradle Catholics (those raised as Catholics from the cradle) might find this odd. What they do not understand is that Protestant denominations have their own customs and expectations when it comes to holidays, meals, and important life events like marriage…and the Catholic Church has her own customs.

Let me give just ten examples that will likely come up. If you have others, please share them in the comments:

1. At Christmas and other holidays, you will have to go Holy Mass with your family. This creates problems with scheduling wider family events on Christmas.
2. When you pray at meals, your family and children will make the sign of the cross. This will startle your extended family.
3. When the grandparents pray with your children, your children will at some point innocently and rightly start praying to Mary or to some saints. That might cause grandma to go into a conniption.
4. You won’t contracept. This means you’ll start having lots of babies. This means your family will constantly say things like, “Aren’t you finished?” or hurtful things to your wife, “Don’t you want to do something more important than have children and pack lunches?”
5. You will have a crucifix in your house which will draw comments.
6. Marriages will be Catholic and Catholic only. That means no weddings at the family’s favorite chapel.
7. You won’t be able to attend a family wedding if Catholics are getting married in Protestant chapels and in sometimes in difficult situations where there is divorce.
8. If you’re practicing, you’ll be praying the Rosary daily. I invite Protestant family to join us, but that may not be comfortable for everyone.
9. On Fridays, especially on Fridays during Lent you’ll have to ask questions about dinner before accepting an invitation, because you cannot eat flesh meat (beef, pork, chicken, etc.)
10. You’ll have one family member who is very aggressive and challenging. They’ll be playing Johnny Apologetics every time you gather as a family. There will the be uncomfortable debates about sola fide, sola scriptura, Mary, the Pope, Catholic history, and more.

Hard words, I know. Yet when we consider the gift of the beatific vision of God’s essence and our union with Him for ever, all created happiness and goods fail to compare. Everything is worth it. Catholicism is the pearl of great price. Also, think of it this way. Early Catholics struggled with becoming martyrs. When they were martyred they offered their deaths for the conversion of their accusers and enemies (St Stephen martyrdom and St Paul’s conversion is an example).

Today we do not worry about martyrdom (yet), but we do worry about the disgrace we will experience from our families. That is a small price when you think of it. Moreover, whenever your family ridicules your mocks your for being a Catholic, you can offer that pain for their conversion. It might be the trigger that releases graces upon their souls.

To read the two previous posts about becoming Catholic, click here.

ad Jesum per Mariam,

Taylor Marshall

I was a newly minted Anglican clergyman and I sensed that I should be doing something active and visible for Christ in the local community. I began praying with other Anglicans in front of Planned Parenthood once a week. Having been previously Reformed, “social action” and anything that smacked of the “social Gospel” was mocked and condemned both by my friends and myself. In fact, my RUF leader in college told us that preaching against things like abortion from the pulpit was an abuse since the pulpit was solely for “Gospel preaching” not “political issues.” I thought that this sounded a bit off, but I did not question it.

Now that I was praying in front of an abortion clinic with a collar around my neck, I began to see that Christianity is much more than preaching, reading “solid” books, and debating doctrine. Teenage girls were crying. Men were dropping off girlfriends for their dirty deed. It was terrible, and yet somehow I knew that Christ was working through those present in a special way.

Here’s the kicker. On each day that we went to pray before Planned Parenthood, there were always many, many Catholics and usually at least one Catholic priest. They were kneeling in the gravel and praying. After a few months of observing this, one begins to ask himself: “Why are these Catholics here humiliating themselves and praying for people who mock them? Where are the Lutherans? Where are the Baptists? Where are the Reformed?” The denominations weren’t there. That’s not to say that they are not pro-life. However, it demonstrates that in this case, Catholicism is somehow more socially aware.

As I got to know these Catholics and their priests, I learned that they were not flimsy “social justice only” types. They went to Mass daily. They prayed. They defended the Creeds and Councils. They even studied Sacred Scripture. It was a balance that is rarely achieved in the realm of Protestantism.

I’m not saying that this one event “made me Catholic,” but it opened my eyes to authentic Christianity. The combination of theological rigor and corporal acts of mercy was something that I found very attractive and it certainly lead to my conversion.

My conclusion now is that Catholic liturgy naturally makes one socially aware. This would be a longer post for another time.

Godspeed,

Taylor Marshall

I’ll begin by admitting that becoming Catholic is very difficult. For some, it entails for losing their jobs. It can cause deep marital strain and stress. Grown children don’t often understand. Friendships can be lost. It is very difficult. Anyone who tells you that entering the Catholic Church is easy is lying to you. Avoid that person. Even though it is difficult, I can recall a moment in which the call to Rome became secure. I was still an Episcopalian priest. I was in Rome. It was Feb. 2, 2006. I was at Holy Mass with Pope Benedict XVI. I won’t bore you with the details, but there I was. I was wearing a black cassock and I’m sure everyone thought I was a real Catholic priest (unless, of course, they noticed my blonde pregnant wife nearby). It was a beautiful Mass–the feast day of the Purification of Mary. When it came time for Holy Communion, I was devastated. I realized that the Pope was right there in front of me, but I could not receive the Eucharist.

At that moment everything in my soul felt contorted and out of whack. I knew that I should be Catholic. I wanted to be Catholic so badly. That was it. I knew that if I did not strive to enter the Catholic Church that I would never be happy and that I would be damned. I felt the sin of “schism” for the first time. In my soul, I realized that schism is just as horrid as murder, adultery, or rape. I realized schism was contrary to love and that I was part of schism. Worst of all, I felt that I was not enjoying all the gifts that Christ had given to us.

When I got home to Texas, I met with the Catholic bishop. The rest is history.

Look for more “journey notes” tomorrow.

Godspeed,

Taylor Marshall

I believed in infant baptism but I did not then believe in baptismal regeneration. The reason for this was clear. Only the elect are regenerated. It is obvious that not everyone who is baptized as an infant demonstrates the behavior of regeneration in adulthood. Therefore, baptismal regeneration was, in my mind, false.

The guiding principle for me was that God’s positive decree of predestination sealed the number of the elect. The action of sacraments, then, could not be perfectly related to human salvation. I nonetheless recognized the language of the Westminster Confession regarding it’s moderate stance on regeneration and baptism. I did not assent to baptism as the “instrumental cause” of regeneration, which is the definition of the Council of Trent. The decree of predestination always held the preeminence.

One day, however, a PCA friend asked, “Well does not God predestine all those infant baptisms?” I had not thought of baptism in this light. Of course, God’s sovereignty included both decrees – that of each particular baptism and that of the salvation of the predestinate.

This forced me to meditate on the disconnect between the economy of salvation and the sacramental economy. If the two were entirely distinct, then the sacraments were superflous and completely unneeded. However, my ecclesiology was high enough to know that this conclusion was false. So this cause me to seek a way to see how “predestined baptisms” and “predestined people” could have some sort of connection.

Of coure, Catholicism has a very nuanced way of handling all of this. The Catholic Faith reveals how baptism is both efficacious and instrumental, but not a guarantee of final predestination. Ultimately, the answer if found in temporal chronology. Sanctifying grace is not something super-temporal (existing in God’s mind as His generic “favor”) but something that is placed into the human soul in time. Grace is a supernatural quality given to the soul. Since this giving happens in time, it can grow or decrease. It can come and it can go. The fact that grace is given in time provided the answer that I needed to solve this mystery.

I learned that the “ordo salutis” or “order of salvation” is not an abstraction but is actually lived out in each person’s life. It’s dynamic – just as human life is dynamic. To be honest, every moment is predestined. Every baptism is just as predestined as the eschaton or the predestined full number of the elect. This flattens out predestination and helps us to appreciate temporal order and chronology.

I hope this helpful and I hope that it generates some interesting conversation in the comments below. Please don’t hesitate to leave a comment.

Godspeed,

Taylor Marshall

IV. There are only two sacraments ordained by Christ our Lord in the Gospel; that is to say, Baptism, and the Supper of the Lord: neither of which may be dispensed by any, but by a minister of the Word lawfully ordained.

This statement contradicts the Catholic Faith in two ways:

First, there are not two sacraments “ordained by Christ” but seven sacraments and this can be proved by the Sacred Scriptures alone.

Secondly, it is ancient tradition that the sacrament of baptism can be dispensed by laymen (in the case of the danger of death) and not solely by “a minister of the Word lawfully ordained.”

Let’s look at the first error. Did Christ ordain two or seven sacraments? It is a clear fact that Christ instituted seven sacraments of the New Covenant. This has been confirmed again and again in Councils, both Eastern and Western.

As we learn from St Paul’s epistle to the Hebrews, the New Covenant is based on the oath of God. In Hebrew, to swear an oath is, literally, “to seven oneself or bind onself by seven things.” Look up שָׁבַע in your Hebrew lexicon for details. So then, we should expect that the New and Everlasting Covenant should be sevenfold and ratified by seven covenantal indicators: the sacraments.

This is why Sacred Scripture details the institution of exactly seven sacraments:

1. Baptism – Mt 28:19
2. Confirmation – John 16:7, John 7:39, Luke 3:22, Acts 8:14-17; Heb 6:2
3. Eucharist – Mt 26:26-29, Jn 6
4. Penance – John 20:21-23
5. Extreme Unction – Mk 6:13, James 5:14-15
6. Holy Orders – Mt 26:26-29, Acts 6:3-6; 1 Tim. 3:1; 1 Tim. 3:8-9; 1 Tim. 4:14-16; 1 Tim. 5:17-19-22
7. Matrimony – Jn, 2, Mt 19:10-11; Eph 5:31-32

This is the true faith of the Apostles, Fathers, and Doctors of the Holy Catholic Church. Plus, it is plain that more sacraments than two are needed. If baptism washes away sins, then how are post-baptismal sins absolved? Obviously, this requires the sacrament of Penance (which, by the way, St Augustine taught). Moreover, if salvation depends on the persevering to the hour of death (and not “once saved always saved” or something similar), then there needs to be a sacrament appointed for that last hour – Extreme Unction. Moreover, if matrimony is to be governed by the Church and not the State (a terrible heresy of Luther which has led to the state recognized “gay marriage” debate), then matrimony must be a sacrament. So on and so forth. The Protestant claim of “two sacraments” fails biblically and practically.

Second, is it the case that baptism can only be administered by “a minister of the Word lawfully ordained” as the WCF claims? No, the Catholic Church has always held that baptism can be administered by anyone.

Sacramental baptism is the means by which Christ regenerates the soul, washes away original sin, and incorporates a person into His mystical Body. It infallibly confers grace. Christ said that unless a person be baptized, he cannot enter the kingdom of Heaven (cf. Jn 3:3-5). And since God “wills all men to be saved” (1 Timothy 2:4), it was fitting that this sacrament might be administered by anyone and with an element that is universally available – water. Whereever there are humans, there is water. The universal desire for humanity’s salvation can be discerned by God’s generosity in this regard.

Since baptism is necessary for salvation, Pope Gelasius I (pope from AD 492 till 496) decreed that the baptisms of laymen and laywomen were valid and accepted by Christians everywhere. Sacred Tradition even records that the Ethiopian Eunuch, baptized by St Philip in Acts 8, brought back the saving sacrament of baptism to Ethiopia.

In conclusion, the sacramental theology of the WCF fails to appreciate what Christians had believed long before the 17th century – namely that Christ’s sacramental economy is more generous and full than Protestants claim and that the call to baptism is more generous and gracious than the WCF stipulates.

His Holiness Pope Pius XI
Visible Vicar of Christ
in the Visible Church of Christ

I find it noteworthy that His Holiness speaks against a kind of ecclesiology that identifies itself a “federation” since the Latin foedus is often translated “covenant” as in “covenant community” – a phrase commonly employed by Presbyterian to describe the Church of Christ. Catholics don’t deny that the Catholic Church is a “covenant community” but it’s 100 times more than that! It’s also noteworthy, that so-called “high-church” Presbyterians have to lean on terms like “federal vision” since they have a faulty ecclesiology but a willingness to say that it’s more than a mere voluntary association.

Enough rambling. Here’s the meat of Pope Pius’ argument. I hope that you’ll also notice and respect the biblical theology montage that the Holy Father paints for us regarding the visibility of the one and only true Church of Jesus Christ:

Further, We believe that those who call themselves Christians can do no other than believe that a Church, and that Church one, was established by Christ; but if it is further inquired of what nature according to the will of its Author it must be, then all do not agree. A good number of them, for example, deny that the Church of Christ must be visible and apparent, at least to such a degree that it appears as one body of faithful, agreeing in one and the same doctrine under one teaching authority and government; but, on the contrary, they understand a visible Church as nothing else than a Federation, composed of various communities of Christians, even though they adhere to different doctrines, which may even be incompatible one with another.

Instead, Christ our Lord instituted His Church as a perfect society, external of its nature and perceptible to the senses, which should carry on in the future the work of the salvation of the human race, under the leadership of one head,[4] with an authority teaching by word of mouth,[5] and by the ministry of the sacraments, the founts of heavenly grace;[6] for which reason He attested by comparison the similarity of the Church to a kingdom,[7] to a house,[8] to a sheepfold,[9] and to a flock.[10]

This Church, after being so wonderfully instituted, could not, on the removal by death of its Founder and of the Apostles who were the pioneers in propagating it, be entirely extinguished and cease to be, for to it was given the commandment to lead all men, without distinction of time or place, to eternal salvation: “Going therefore, teach ye all nations.”[11]

In the continual carrying out of this task, will any element of strength and efficiency be wanting to the Church, when Christ Himself is perpetually present to it, according to His solemn promise: “Behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world?”[12] It follows then that the Church of Christ not only exists to-day and always, but is also exactly the same as it was in the time of the Apostles, unless we were to say, which God forbid, either that Christ our Lord could not effect His purpose, or that He erred when He asserted that the gates of hell should never prevail against it.

5. Mark xvi, 15.

6. John iii, 5; vi, 48-59; xx, 22 seq; cf. Matt. xviii, 18, etc.

7. Matt. xiii.

8. cf. Matt. xvi, 18.

9. John x, 16.

10. John xxi, 15-17.

11. Matt. xxviii, 19.

However, it would be wrong to suppose that Catholic deny predestination per se. Rather, the doctrine of predestination is upheld, albeit with a important qualifications.

Dominican Father Reginald Marie Garrigou-Lagrange

As a Catholic, what is now more important to me is the “signs of predestination.” In other words “faith alone” is by no means a sign that one is among the elect of God. Rather, the Dominican Father Réginald Marie Garrigou-Lagrange (d. 1964) observed this in his work Life Everlasting:

The Council of Trent has declared that we cannot have on earth certitude of our predestination without a special revelation. Aside from this special revelation no man can know if he will persevere in good works to the end. Nevertheless there are signs of predestination which give a kind of moral certitude that one will persevere. The Fathers, especially St. Chrysostom, St. Gregory the Great, St. Bernard, St. Anselm, have enumerated certain of these signs, following the directions of Scripture.

Theologians enumerate eight signs of predestination.

1. First, a good life;
2. secondly, the testimony of a good conscience;
3. thirdly, patience in adversities for love of God;
4. fourthly, relish for the light and the Word of God;
5. fifthly, mercy toward those who suffer;
6. sixthly, love of enemies;
7. seventhly, humility;
8. eighthly, special devotion to the Blessed Virgin

(from R.M. Garrigou-Lagrange, in Life Everlasting, “The Number of the Elect”).

As a Catholic, then, belief in predestination is less of an academic exercise and more of an aid to the examination of my conscience. Do I patiently bear through difficulties? Do I maintain a love for the Word of God? Do I study it daily? Do I order my life to it? Do I love the poor and try to assist them? Am I praying and blessing for those who hate me?

The question is not, “Am I predestined?” because nobody can know this without a special revelation. Rather, the question is, “Do I resemble the character of the predestined? Am I a man of the beatitudes?”

As I discussed in the book The Catholic Perspective on Paul, Paul’s doctrine of predestination is this: “He also predestinated to be made conformable to the image of his Son: that he might be the Firstborn amongst many brethren” (Rom 8:29).

We are predestined to not merely be in Heaven, but to be conformed to the image of Christ. If we do not resemble the Eight Beatitudes of Christ from the Sermon on the Mount, we’re not being conformed to Christ. We’re not likely predestined.

In light of all this, the words of Saint Peter, that holy pontiff, make more sense:

Wherefore, brethren, labour the more, that by good works you may make sure your calling and election. For doing these things, you shall not sin at any time (2 Peter 1:10).

So follow the eight signs of predestination, but especially foster a deep filial love for the Blessed Virgin Mary. She is the predestined one, the most perfectly saved person of human history and the most perfect created person of all creation – even greater than the angels. She is the Mother of Fair Love and she will guide you to the tender mercy of her Divine Son Jesus Christ – the mediator between God and men.

All the saints agree: A man cannot be saved without love and devotion for the Blessed Mother of Christ the King. To be “in Christ” is to be a child of God the Father and a child of Mary. Honor thy Father and thy Mother.