A simple and direct reply from St. Thomas Aquinas sheds light on a matter of great interest: our eternal salvation.
Newsroom (03/09/2022 10:35 AM, Gaudium Press) How do we get to Heaven? How can we attain eternal salvation? That was the question a lady once asked her brother. This lady might have received an incomplete or unsatisfactory answer from him, had it not been for the grace – and what a grace! – of having the great St. Thomas Aquinas as her brother.
The answer: “Be Willing”
The answer, however, would surprise us for its simplicity: “Be Willing”. The Holy Doctor could not have been more precise. Any internal effort or external help is absolutely useless when the person does not sincerely want his salvation. That is why the Jesuit priest Alfonso Rodrigues, commenting on this fact, said: “If you want to be saved, you will be saved. (…) The whole point of the difficulty lies in wanting and desiring, and in the desire being from the heart, because God, for His part, is ready to help us.
Compiled by Sandra Chisholm
