(Mt 25:31-46) The human body has 3 kinds of life: vegetative life which we share with plants, involving nutrition, growth and multiplication; sensitive life, which we share with animals, involving our 5 senses and locomotion, and the rational life of the soul, which is proper to the head, and held in common with the angels. Christ's body, the Church, also has 3 kinds of life: the physical life of its members, the life of grace that we receive in baptism, and the divine life of the Holy Spirit, who animates the Church the way the soul animates the body. This divine life is proper to Jesus our head.
Although irrational in itself our hand acts rationally when writing, playing the piano, etc. Sensitive life is the hand's participation in the rational life of the head. Likewise sanctifying grace is our share as members of Christ's body in the divinity of Jesus our head. Grace allows us to act divinely although we aren't divine in ourselves. Therefore, serious sin in the Church is like paralysis in the body. Paralysis is the loss of sensitive life in the effected member, which can no longer act rationally. Sin is the loss of grace in the sinner, who can no longer merit supernaturally.
When my hand gives alms to the poor, it is really I who am doing so. Likewise when members of Jesus' mystical body perform the good deeds mentioned in today's gospel, it is really Jesus who is doing them. This is why our good deeds merit for us an increase in grace. However, Catholics agree with protestants that our good works can never merit heaven for us. In order to merit that grace we would already have to possess it!
Why, then, are the benefactors in today's gospel rewarded with heaven for doing the same good works that the wicked were condemned to hell for not doing? Because sometimes omitting good deeds means more than choosing the lesser of two goods. Some omissions actually cross the line separating good from evil. Those mentioned in today's gospel are flagrant enough to deprive the sinner of grace. "If anyone sees his brother sinning," writes St. John, "if the sin is not deadly, he should pray to God and he will give him life. This is only for those whose sin is not deadly. There is such a thing as deadly sin, about which I do not say that you should pray." Why not pray? Because only the apostles' received power to bind and loose sins. Only their prayer of absolution could give life to one whose sin was deadly.
Catholics and protestants also agree that we are saved by faith alone, provided it is a living faith animated by the love received at baptism or restored through absolution. Why, then, isn't faith even mentioned in today's gospel about justification? Don't worry. It's there!
Unlike all His creatures, God alone does good without any hope of reward because He can't receive anything He doesn't already have. Yet living faith allows us to love in a Godlike way by doing good without seeking a reward in this life. Even wicked people perform good works for an earthly reward. "Oh, if we had only known it was you, Lord..." Then they would have acted out of worldly self-interest. Even a dead faith allows them to see the reward beyond the grave that surpasses all worldly treasures, but they can't desire it because that reward is God Himself, whom they don't love.
We can love Christ our king in the needy but in the Eucharist He comes to us in a way that allows us to love Him most perfectly, without any self-interest, because even the poor will pay us back with a smile. Therefore: "Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. When I had the appearance of bread, you had quantity time for me." Amen
