Video Transcript
Edmund: Two gunslingers stand ready to duel. One wears a white hat, and a sheriff’s badge. The other wears a black hat, and a devilish mustache. This is why I love Western films. It’s pure and simple storytelling.
Emily: Yeah, it’s interesting that even without any dialogue, the audience can guess who just robbed a train and who is trying to save the town. Probably because we all have this sense that in real life, we are put in situations where we’re trying to distinguish the good guys from the bad guys.
Edmund: And we’re drawn to this distinction because we know there are consequences for our actions. When faced with moral dilemmas in our own lives, we don’t just want to avoid evil choices, most of us also really don’t want to find out that we’re the villain.
Emily: We have free will so when we choose evil acts, we’re acting evil. And when we choose good acts, which is what God wants, we are acting good. So the question we’re really wrestling with is: if a good person chooses an evil act, were they really good in the first place?
Edmund: The truth is, every human action — that is, every action that requires us to think about what we are doing — has moral significance. It’s either good, leading us toward God and His plan for us, or evil, leading us away from Him. This is the strange predicament we find ourselves in on a daily basis. And each of us have made mistakes. We’ve all sinned at some point in our lives.
Emily: God has a plan of loving goodness. And that plan is for us to share in His love and happiness. We are made in the image and likeness of God who is love, truth, and goodness itself.
Edmund: We’re created for God, which means we are attracted to goodness, truth, and love. Evil has no place in God’s relationship of love.
Emily: God revealed the law. That is, God revealed the difference between good and evil. But God has also written this law on our hearts. The natural law is what we call our moral sense by which we can discern good from evil.
Edmund: God revealed His law to His people Israel through the 10 Commandments, as described in the Old Testament. He did this so His way of life could be followed easily and without error by everyone. But as we know, following God’s law by our own strength is difficult.
Emily: Adam and Eve fell short of God’s law. And many of God’s greatest leaders have fallen short of God’s law at some point. We are all, as humanity, wounded by original sin. That’s the original fall from grace and relationship with God of Adam and Eve. And because of this, we all have difficulty following God’s law by our own strength. We need help.
Edmund: God shows us the plan for our salvation through the law and gives us grace to respond to Him in love. Jesus shows us how the law can be fulfilled, elevating our understanding of what it means to follow the law and choose the good, always.
Emily: Jesus, the perfect fulfillment of the Law, brings us the new Law of the Gospel.
Edmund: The catechism speaks about this in paragraph 1949 where it says: “Called to beatitude but wounded by sin, man stands in need of salvation from God. Divine help comes to him in Christ through the law that guides him and the grace that sustains him.” So we need both law and grace.
Emily: Jesus follows the law perfectly, and He offers Himself for our justification. Through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, He has redeemed us from the consequences of our sin. He paid the price for our sin, and won for us this justification, which restores us to “right relationship” with God.
Edmund: But justification is not a one-time thing. Through grace, we can respond to God’s invitation to be justified through Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit. Justification is a work of the Holy Spirit that cleanses us from sin and gives us the power to live as Jesus did.
Emily: Justification comes from the grace of God. Grace is free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to His invitation to become adopted children of God and to participate in His life. Justification is a work of conversion, detaching us from sin, accepting God’s life, and cooperating with God’s grace to live as His sons and daughters.
Edmund: Through Jesus, we are invited to be good as Jesus is good. We still struggle with stumbling and falling into sin and we need God’s grace, mercy, and forgiveness to keep striving to follow God’s law; the law of life and love Jesus revealed to us.
Emily: God shows us the plan for our salvation through the Law and gives us the grace to respond to Him in love.
