Lent: the time of salvation: sermon on Septuagesima Sunday

By a Dominican friar   |   12 February 2025

“Everyone that striveth for the mastery, refraineth himself from all things: and they indeed that they may receive a corruptible crown, but we, an incorruptible one.”

Like a church bell announcing that it will soon be time for Mass, Septuagesima Sunday heralds the approach of Lent. And Lent is called the time of salvation. Fittingly, therefore, this Mass of Septuagesima speaks to us of the need, if we are to be saved, of both God’s grace and our free will.

Let’s speak of free will, first. If we are going to save our souls, we have to make an effort. Even if man had never fallen, we should still have needed to make an effort to resist the temptations of the devil. But since Adam’s sin, because of the weakness of our fallen nature, effort has become more necessary than ever. We seem to hear the voice of Adam in the introit of this Mass: “The groans of death surrounded me, the sorrows of hell encompassed me.” That describes the state of fallen man, the state in which we are born.

Now, even for us, who have been redeemed by the blood of Christ, that weakness of Adam is still present. This is why St Paul tells the Corinthians that penance is necessary for a Christian. By penance we deny ourselves things that we might have enjoyed without sinning, in order that we will be stronger when it comes to resisting temptations to commit sin. Just as the boxer goes into training before a big fight, St Paul tells them, so must we.

And he drives the point home by giving two examples. One is of the Israelites who went out of Egypt toward the promised Land. The miraculous food and drink they received didn’t guarantee them entrance into that land. Most of them grew weary of the hardship on the way, and fell back into idolatry and other sins. The other example is himself. Even though he’s preached the gospel heroically, St Paul doesn’t presume that he will be saved. “I chastise my body and bring it into subjection, he says, lest perhaps, when I have preached to others, I myself should become a castaway.” In other words, neither the gifts we’ve received from God nor our own past good actions guarantee that we will persevere in the future. We all bear Adam’s weakness within us; that’s why we need to do penance.

So much for free will. But in case this emphasis on penance might lead us to think that we can save ourselves, the Church also gives us today the gospel of the labourers in the vineyard. And here, our Lord shows us that salvation depends on grace. No one in the parable leaves the market-place, representing worldly pursuits, and enters the vineyard, representing God’s service, just by his own choice. No, the householder has to go out each time to call them in. Unless God’s grace went before us, none of us could ever begin to serve Him.  

And notice that each time, the householder calls whom he wills. Why, for example, doesn’t he hire some of the people until the eleventh hour of the day? Is it because they only appeared in the market-place then? No, since he himself says to them: “Why stand you here all the day idle?” If God converts some people in their youth and others in mid-life and others in old age, it’s not for us to ask Him why.  If we did, He might reply to us as the householder does to one of the grumbling workers, “Is it not lawful for me do to as I will, with my own grace?”

So, which is it? Are we saved by free will, or by the grace of God? You might as well ask, did the labourers earn their penny because they worked or because the householder invited them in? The answer is, both at once. So, as we approach the season of Lent, let’s resolve both to do penance with a good will, and to rely more than ever on the grace of God.