Grace

“Grace is favor, the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of God, adoptive sons, partakers of the divine nature and of eternal life” (CCC 1996). 

Christ came to enlarge our lives: “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (Jn 10:10). Through grace we are called to the new life of Christ, to fullness of life.

Grace is saving, liberating, and redemptive. Through the gift of grace God takes away sin and heals even the human dimensions of our lives. But, above all, grace is aimed at enabling us to share in God’s own life; through it we become “partakers in the divine nature” (2 Pt 1:4). We become, even in this life, sons and daughters of God, able to live far richer lives: knowing securely the most important of all truths, with lives fortified with hope, and enriched by the love God pours into our hearts. 

By grace, we are made members of the very Body of Christ, united to the Son of God made man as intimately as branches to the vine, and made one with one another through our unity with the Lord. But grace points essentially toward eternal life, and all the gifts of grace are intended to lead us at length to the fullest sharing in the life of God, when we see God face to face in eternal life and so are enabled also to love one another in unbreakable love. 

Grace affects every dimension of Christian life. The four pillars of catechesis are: the Creed, or the truths of faith; the sacraments; the Christian form of life; and prayer. Each of these is intimately associated with grace. Faith itself is a gift of grace: We are able to believe God, to know securely the truth of all his saving message, and to entrust our whole lives to him, only by the working of grace (cf. Eph 2:8; Vatican Council II, Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, Dei Verbum, 5). The sacraments by God’s favor make present to our lives all the mysteries of faith, and confer upon us the saving fruits of these mysteries. The ability to live the Christian life, keeping faithfully the Ten Commandments and the commandments of love, is the fruit of grace. Prayer, too, is the work of grace, for it is only in the Spirit that we can pray fruitfully (Rom 8:26-27). Moreover, only grace makes it possible for one to live the excellent and demanding ways of Christ, and to find this not burdensome but light and easy (Mt 11:28-30). 

Grace gives abundant life in various ways. It liberates us from sin and from the evils sin has brought upon the world; it heals the wounds in our nature and in the world, restoring natural things to their vigorous fullness; but, above all, it transforms our lives, drawing us nearer to God, making us truly sharers in God’s own divine nature (CCC 1989-1990, 1996-1997). 

Grace is meant primarily to bring us to share in God’s own nature and life (cf. 2 Pt 1:4). God made us to be not simply his servants but his friends. The Father willed us to be his true sons and daughters (cf. 1 Jn 3:2) in Christ his eternal Son; the Son of God wished to take up our human nature so that we could share in his divine nature. Even in this world we are to share God’s life. By grace we are even now children of God, though it does not yet fully appear what we shall be (1 Jn 3:2). Even now we experience a measure of divine life. For by faith we share in the light of God’s wisdom, and by the gift of his love we share already God’s inmost life. 

But this new life is fully possessed only when, at the end time, Christ completes the redemption of the world, healing all wounds, and taking away every sorrow and every tear from those who have loved him (Rv 21:4). Then we shall be manifestly like God, seeing him face to face, and filled with infinite joy and life that will never cease. 

Centrality of Grace • Grace thus is central to all of Catholic life. To present what faith teaches of grace is to present the whole mystery of Christ, the whole story of salvation. “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God” (Eph 2:8). Grace is a personal reality: It is the gift of a God who is most near to our lives, and it creates living ties of faith, hope, and love that bind us personally to God. Grace is not some rather magical thing strangely manipulated by formal prayers and sacramental gestures, as those who look at Catholic life apart from warm personal involvement in it sometimes fancy; rather, grace shapes and strengthens the most personal relationships with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 

Moreover, the doctrine of grace addresses the real problems of human life. Human selfishness, cruelty, and sin clearly are very real. The world we were born into is a broken world, and we ourselves suffer from the effects of original sin. Often, indeed, the world seems to shine with great hope, but repeatedly it disappoints us; and we also disappoint ourselves and those we want to love. Our hearts crave human fulfillment, but do not reach it. We have longings for what we have no power to grasp, longings for what only the favor, or grace, of God makes possible. 

The first beginnings of a Christian life are rooted in grace. We are born in original sin and born into a fallen world. The sinner has no power at all to reach out toward salvation, unless grace precedes and stirs up the will to come to God. Conversion is the first work of grace; and the fruit of conversion and justification is not only the remission of sin but also the gift of life: “the sanctification and renewal of the inner man” (Council of Trent, cf. Denzinger-Schönmetzer, 1528). 

God, however, wishes not only to give his people the first gifts of grace but to enable them to grow all their lives in greater love. Christian life is personal: It is growing in friendship with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and in authentic love of our brothers and sisters in Christ. Those who seek to please God must use the means of grace that deepen friendship with the Lord: the sacraments, prayers, and the works of love. 

Finally, though, grace aims always at eternal life in its full possession. Its purpose is always to lead the sons and daughters of God, after they have received the grace of final perseverance, to the ultimate and crowning grace of the light of glory. This crowning grace enables them to see God face to face, and so be secure forever in sharing with overwhelming richness God’s life and everything good. “ ‘In Scripture, to see is to possess. . . . Whoever sees God has obtained all the goods of which he can conceive’ [St. Gregory of Nyssa, De Beatitudinibus 6: PG 44, 1265A]” (CCC 2548). 

The Context of Grace • We have seen what grace is and its sublime purposes. To speak adequately of grace, however, one must speak also of its source, the relationship between grace and freedom, the forms of divine grace, and how God’s grace is related to merit and to divine rewards. The Catechism of the Catholic Church speaks of all these matters, reminding us that the whole of faith is intermingled with what we say of grace. 

It is Christ who won for us all the gifts of grace. Our justification was won for us by his blessed Passion (Council of Trent, cf. Denzinger-Schönmetzer, 1528-1529), and all the gifts of grace given to sinful man are merited by their only Savior (CCC 1992). It is Christ’s Holy Spirit, whom he sends to the Church and to each of his followers, who confers on us the gifts of grace (CCC 2003). 

Grace and freedom go well together. God gives his grace freely, and he gives it to free persons so that they might serve him freely and gladly. It is not as though God gave us part of what we need to share his life, and we contributed part: All is the gift of God. 

But God’s gift is free and given to our freedom. He does not force us to faith, but invites us; he does not compel us to love with divine love, but gives us the power to do so. Those whom grace moves to faith and love do in God’s power what they otherwise could not have done. But the gifts of God are gently given, and they are offered to all, since God wills all to be saved (1 Tm 2:4). 

God’s grace is mighty and effective. When we do not reject his grace, it achieves in us all the good that God wishes to accomplish in us. All is from God; we have nothing to give that could make us sharers in divine life or able to do things possible only through the power of God. But God graciously gives in a way that honors our freedom. Should we be unwilling to allow grace to bear fruit in us, it will not. But if we happily decline to refuse grace, his gifts flower in us. Thus freedom is not crippled, but made vigorous by grace (cf. CCC 1993; Council of Trent, Denzinger-Schönmetzer, 1525). 

Merit • Following Scripture, Catholic faith teaches that all of our new life in Christ is a divine favor given without our deserving it (cf. Eph 2:8) and also that we can in a certain way merit or deserve rewards from God (cf. 2 Tm 4:7-8). 

To speak of “merit” is not to forget that in this world of divine mercy man cannot absolutely deserve any rewards from God (CCC 2007). But there is a graciousness in God’s whole plan of salvation. He wants us to come to blessed and everlasting life freely; he wishes us in a way to deserve possession of himself; he wishes to call us into eternal life as friends who have freely loved him and have served him with free hearts; he wishes to give himself to us as a gift we have ourselves labored to obtain and struggled devotedly to possess. All is his gift, but it is a gift he has enabled us to possess freely.

Man’s merit, then, is not based on any power of his own to do deeds that require divine power; it is due to God’s gift. Should we do anything noble and saving, like making personal acts of faith and of love, which by his grace we can do, we do so only because God in his mercy enables us to perform such saving acts. Yet he enables us to do them and permits us to refuse to do so. Hence he graciously counts our willing reception of grace and flourishing in it as worthy of his blessing and reward. 

We are said to merit eternal life, then, because we freely do the saving deeds that God makes it possible for us to do. But all is in the context of grace. “When God crowns our merits,” St. Augustine remarks, “is he not crowning precisely his own gifts?” (Letter 194.5.19). 

Christ indeed won salvation for the whole world by his death upon the cross, but this redemption, merited for all, was not immediately applied to all. When Christ had died and risen, many who would be called to everlasting life yet lived in sin. The saving actions Christ called for were indeed precious and important. That the word of God be proclaimed, that sacraments be conferred and the Spirit be received, that we be taught to love one another and, by his grace, do the works of love – all this was most serious. The merited redemption had to be applied in the adventures of salvation history. People had to be called freely and had to respond freely. There is realism in all these adventures of grace in a world penetrated with freedom and given life by the grace of God.

St. Paul repeatedly reminds his readers of the presence and the overwhelming importance of grace, and of how closely grace binds us to the Lord: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you” (1 Thes 5:28; cf. 2 Thes 3:18, Gal 6:18, Rom 16:20). Our salvation is the more secure because it rests, not on our own strength, but on the mercy of God. It is he who will accomplish all that is needed in us. Our faithfulness is indeed called for; but it and all else is the gift of his grace. We may need to struggle, but we can do so confidently if our trust is in the Lord, rather than in ourselves, and if (despite temptations to fall away) we permit his grace to draw us to himself (CCC 2012-2016). 

Actual and Sanctifying Grace • Actual graces touch constantly the lives of those who seek to grow in the Lord. These divine interventions take many forms. By them God stirs up in our minds saving thoughts and in our hearts concern to walk in his ways. We stand always in need of actual graces, from the first beginnings of conversion through every stage along the path toward holiness (CCC 2000). Special attention is needed to grasp the impact of: the sacramental graces that accompany our shared, liturgical worship of the Father; the graces of state; and the special graces, or charisms, by which the Spirit of Christ heartens us toward richer lives (CCC 2003-2004). Prayer, in which the Spirit of Christ himself assists our weakness (cf. Rom. 8:26), is a continuing channel of grace. 

A special form of grace that needs always to be remembered is that called “sanctifying grace,” or “deifying grace” (CCC 1999-2000); it also is called “habitual grace,” for it is a stable and enduring gift. Received in Baptism, this grace makes us truly sharers in the divine nature (2 Pt 1:4), as most dear sons and daughters of the Father. 

Sanctifying grace is an enduring gift. Hence we speak of living in the state of grace. Over the years we should grow in sanctifying grace, becoming more alive in the Lord until the day when we are entirely fulfilled in seeing God face to face in the overwhelming love of the beatific vision. This grace can be lost only by deliberate mortal sin. We would have no power of our own to recover grace; but God’s free graces do pursue the sinner. Those who, led by grace, seek to return to God and to be restored to grace by the sacrament of Reconciliation – or by perfect contrition with the will to receive that sacrament – are enabled to return to the life of grace. 

Religious educators must help the faithful realize the profound importance of living always in sanctifying grace and seeking to return to it promptly if ever they lose it. Only those in the state of grace are truly on the path toward eternal life; only they can worthily receive the sacraments of the Eucharist, Confirmation, Matrimony, or Holy Orders. It is an especially grave sacrilege to receive the Eucharist while in a state of mortal sin. Those who have sinned mortally “must not receive communion without having received absolution in the sacrament of penance” (CCC 1415; cf. 2120). 

Those who live in sanctifying grace are truly children of God and sharers in God’s own nature. Hence, not only does God pour his love into their hearts, but the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit dwell always in those whom they have made their own by sanctifying grace. “My father will love them, and we will come to them, and make our home with them” (Jn 14:23). This is far more than the presence of God in every creature he has made; it is a presence of personal affection, a transforming presence. God’s presence in us calls us to grow in the new life of grace, that we may more and more taste his saving presence, as saints and mystics of every age have proclaimed (St. Teresa of Ávila, The Interior Castle, 7, Ch. 1). 

It is true that grace cannot be immediately experienced, and one cannot know with the certainty of faith that one is in the state of grace. Still, when faith urges us to live always in sanctifying grace, and tells us how wrong it would be to receive Communion while not in grace, it is speaking of the ordinary knowledge people can have that they are or are not living in God’s grace. People certainly can have reliable awareness that they have sinned gravely or that, after sin, they have earnestly sought repentance and have received the sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation with sincere hearts. The good fruits of a life of grace are experienced; those who seek the Lord with generous hearts grow in confidence that he dwells within them.

See: Charisms; Conversion of the Baptized; Faith, Act of; Gifts and Fruits of the Holy Spirit; Justification; Liberation From Sin; Mortal Sin; Original Sin; Redemption; Sacrament; Sacramental Grace; Sin. 

Suggested Readings: CCC 774-776, 1023-1029, 1127-1129, 1987-2029, 2559-2565, 2670-2672. Vatican Council II, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, Ch. VI; Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes, Ch. III. Pius XII, On the Mystical Body of Christ, Mystici Corporis Christi. John Paul II, The Lord and Giver of Life, Dominum et Vivificantem. J. Aumann, O.P., Spiritual Theology. C. Journet, The Meaning of Grace.

Ronald D. Lawler, O.F.M. Cap. 

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Revised: Sunday March 04, 2007 10:34:14 AM
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