Father Mike Schmitz

In verse 24, you see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone.

You know, I know and I don't mean to make this into an argument.

But one of the principles of the Protestant Reformation was faith alone, sola fide.

And the hard thing, this kind of a challenging thing here, is the only time those words, faith and alone, are put together in the scriptures are right here in chapter two of James, verse 24, when James says, you can see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone.

And so it's worth highlighting, again, what I'm trying to do here is, like I said a couple days ago,

I'm not trying to make a case.

I'm not trying to convince anyone.

Actually, I kind of am.

I really believe that Jesus founded the Catholic Church.

And so, of course, I am.

And I believe that every person will find the fullness of faith in the Catholic Church.

And so, but all my Protestant brothers and sisters, all of our friends who are separated brethren in Christ,

Basically, I'm not trying to beat you over the head about this.

I do believe that the Lord Jesus is calling you to become Catholic, but that's not the point.

The point right now is just to explain a little bit about, wait a second, we've heard in Galatians, we've heard in Corinthians, we've heard these other places where St.

Paul is saying that it's all about faith and not about works, and yet my story is that I hear you Catholics talking about works all the time.

Well, this is one of the places where, if you want to know, where do Catholics get the truth that

we need both faith and works.

We're not saved by works.

We're not saved by works.