Jesus came to earth to save us! We affirm that truth every time we say the Nicene Creed at Mass: he came down from Heaven "for our salvation." But what does that mean? In this first episode, Dr. Michael Barber explains why every Catholic should understand the importance of salvation: not just for...

“Salvation as self-help” is only the first of many common misunderstandings that can become pitfalls in the way we understand and live our faith. In this session, Dr. Barber addresses the common misconception that salvation is like “fire insurance”:that it’s all about saving people from the fires...

In the last session, we saw that salvation means more than just avoiding Hell and is, in fact, about having abundant life and knowing God’s love. This raises the question:why the Cross? What do life and love have to do with suffering and death? To find the answer we must explore what Scripture sa...

Salvation is not without cost, as we saw in the last session. We were not only “bought with a price” (1 Corinthians 6:20), but we were ransomed for a purpose—communion with the Most Holy Trinity. But that communion is not merely a personal relationship between us and Jesus. Our relationship with ...

After the Fall, each person is born not only with the stain of sin on their soul but also with a fallen human nature. Thanks be to God that his gift of salvation not only frees us from Original Sin but also transforms us from the inside out, healing the root of our brokenness:our hearts. As we wi...

As we continue our study, we look at how grace moves us to cooperate and participate in the work God is doing in us. This brings us to the question of the role good works play in our standing with God and our transformation as his sons and daughters. Relying heavily on Jesus’s own teachings, we w...

We can talk about salvation in many different ways. We can speak of it in terms of whether or not we will go to Heaven—something that is a future reality. We can also speak of a past time when we turned from a life of sin and began living for Christ, or the date on which we were baptized. In this...

In an earlier session, Dr. Barber spoke about the misunderstanding of salvation as just “getting out of Hell.” He discussed that salvation is so much more than “fire insurance.” Why then is it necessary to speak of Hell in a discussion of salvation? While Jesus spent a great deal of time proclaim...

In this session, we will look at one of the biggest obstacles in the spiritual life:ourselves. God is eager to forgive us of our sins and give his grace to conform us into the image of his Son, but in order to receive forgiveness, we must repent! Repenting of our sin means taking responsibility f...

Why is it so hard to avoid temptation? In this session, we’ll look at Scripture passages that remind us we are not alone (since all creation is struggling) and that give us remedies to strengthen us to win the battle against temptation. The new creation is not merely about the future, but can ent...