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Christ the light of the world – God the Son became man to be the light of the world, to enlighten everyone coming into the world. When Jesus came into the world, even though the world came to be through him, the world did not know him as its Savior and Lord. He came to his own people, the people chosen by God, but the leaders did not accept him. Some of his people did accept him, and others who were not his own people did accept him. To all those who did accept him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become the children of God.     Salvation: The Fathers plan according to Saint Paul (Eph. 1:3-14)

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has bestowed on us in Christ every spiritual blessing in the heavens! God chose us in him before the world began: to be holy and blameless in his sight, to be full of love; he likewise predestined us through Christ Jesus to be his adopted sons and daughters; such was his will and pleasure, that all might praise the glorious favor he has bestowed on us in his beloved. Fulfillment through Christ - It is in Christ and through his blood that we have been redeemed and our sins forgiven, so immeasurably generous is God’s favor to us. God has given us the wisdom to understand fully the mystery, the plan he was pleased to decree in Christ, to be carried out in the fullness of time: namely, to bring all things in the heavens and on earth into one under Christ’s leadership.

Blessing for Jew and Gentile - In him we were chosen; for in the decree of God, who administers everything according to his will and counsel, we were predestined to praise his glory by being the first to hope in Christ. In him you too were chosen; when you heard the glad tidings of salvation, the word of truth, and believed in it, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit who had been promised. He is the pledge of our inheritance, the first payment against the full redemption of a people God has made his own, to praise his glory. Saint Paul’s Prayer (Eph.1:15-22) May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, grant you a spirit of wisdom and insight to know him clearly. May he enlighten your innermost vision that you may know the great hope to which he has called you, the wealth of his glorious heritage to be distributed among the members of his Church, and the immeasurable scope of his power in us who believe. It is like the strength he showed in raising Christ from the dead and seating him at his right hand in heaven, high above every principality, power, virtue, and domination, and every name that can be given in this age or in the age to come. He has put all things under Christ’s feet and has made him, thus exalted, head of the Church, which is his body: the fullness of him who fills the universe in all its parts.

God’s grace makes us heirs to his kingdom – In Christ we have divine privileges and resources, that is, we are chosen, adopted and forgiven. We are blessed with the gift of the Holy Spirit. In teaching us God’s plan of salvation, Saint Paul insists that the basis for all God’s gifts and graces is the reconciling death of Jesus on the Cross. We are saved by his redeeming blood. Through Christ alone God gives us forgiveness Jesus’ plan of salvation – In Jesus’ plan of salvation people had to be born again of water and the Holy Spirit in the Sacrament of Baptism. They became alive in a new way with sanctifying grace, the sharing in God’s own life.     All through the Old Testament – God had prepared for the coming of his Son into the world. God raised up Moses, the great prophet, and through him gave the law to his chosen People

Humanity’s Sin through Adam (Rom. 5:12-14) Therefore, just as through one person sin entered the world, and through sin, death, and thus death came to all, inasmuch as all sinned---for up to the time of the law, sin was in the world, though sin is not accounted when there is no law. But death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who did not sin after the pattern of the trespass of Adam, who is the type of the one to come.

Grace and life through Christ ( Rom.5:12 15- But the gift is not like the transgression. For if by that one person’s transgression the many died, how much more did the grace of God, and the gracious gift of the one person Jesus Christ overflow to the many.

The gift is not like the result of the one person’s sinning. For after one sin there was the judgment that brought condemnation; but the gift, after many transgressions, brought acquittal. For if, by the transgression of the one person, death came to reign through that one, how much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of justification come to reign in life through the one person Jesus Christ.

In conclusion, just as through one transgression condemnation came upon all, so through one righteous act acquittal and life came to all. For just as through the disobedience of  one person the many were made sinners, so through the obedience of one the many will be made righteous.

The law entered in so that transgression might increase but where sin increased, grace overflowed all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through justification for eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

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