QUOTATION: Justification By Works

Paul rejects the attitude of those who would consider themselves justified before God on the basis of their own works. Such people, even when they obey the commandments and do good works, are centered on themselves; they fail to realize that goodness comes from God. Those who live this way, who want to be the source of their own righteousness, find that the latter is soon depleted and that they are unable even to keep the law. They become closed in on themselves and isolated from the Lord and from others; their lives become futile and their works barren, like a tree far from water.

--Pope Francis, Lumen Fidei

QUOTATION: Justification

The self-contented conscience does not content God; and that man alone is just before Him, who knows that all justice and grace proceed from the divine mercy.

--St. John of Avila, Letters, XXIII

QUOTATION: Evidence of Justification

Though it is true that no man can be certain of his justification, yet there are signs by which we can form a favorable judgment. The principal of these is a change of life; as, for example, when a man who hitherto committed innumerable mortal sins without scruple would not now be guilty of a single grave offence against God even to gain the whole world.

--Louis de Granda, The Sinner's Guide