NOTES for Mat 9:22
A striking feature of the Gospel in many different languages is the use of perfective verbs (though in some languages this is expressed by other verb forms). What matters is that in a number of cases the Lord speaks of accomplished facts. "Your faith has saved you" (Matt 9:22). "The one who hears My word has passed from death into life" (John 5:24). "All of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ" (Gal 3:27). In meaning, though not grammatically, this same series includes: "the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it" (Matt 16:18).
The fact that all these things are already accomplished facts is striking and beautiful. This is what gives firmness to life in faith. This is the source of Christian joy, a joy completely incomprehensible to the unbelieving world. If this were not so, life would be a very frightening and, in essence, hopeless undertaking. But, thankfully, the salvation offered by Jesus Christ - healing, liberation, resurrection - happens. Et salva facta est, as the Latin version of Matt 9:22 says. There is a key moment, a turning point in the history of the world and in the personal biography of every human being, when all this is accomplished, when it becomes fact. This moment is the source of our life. "It is finished," Jesus says as He dies on the Cross (John 19:30). It is precisely as an accomplished fact that the Church in all her life has recourse to salvation.