In 2002 I led a group of fifteen Americans on a trip to Romania. We had a great time in Romania and then headed home. We were to fly out of Munich, Germany, so we overnighted in Salzburg, Austria for some sightseeing. Two blocks from our hotel was St. Sebastian Cathedral with an old cemetery behind it. In the cemetery was the mausoleum of a famous townsman, Wolf Dietrich. Cardinal Wolf Diedrich died in 1617 and left an endowment. The interest from the endowment was to be used to pay the salary for a priest whose only responsibility was to go there daily and pray for the soul of Cardinal Dietrich to be absolved from purgatory and promoted to heaven. While there I was there in 2002, a priest came to the cemetery, unlocked the iron door, prayed a two-minute prayer, re-locked the door and left. His job was done for the day. What an easy job! But just think of the implications. A priest has been praying for Wolf Dietrich’s soul daily, for the past four hundred years with no more hope than in 1617! Hey, we make it into heaven, not by our own merit, nor by the merit of the prayers of a priest, but by the death of Jesus Christ. Paul said in Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Paul said that our work earns us only death, but the gift of Jesus Christ is eternal life. No priest can earn us eternal life; eternal life is given to us by faith in Jesus Christ!
Jesus paid it all!
All to Him, I owe.
Sin hath left a crimson stain,
He washed it white as snow.
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