A Study on Grace

After earth's exile, I hope to go and enjoy you in the fatherland, but I do not want to lay up merits for heaven. I want to work for your love alone. . . . In the evening of this life, I shall appear before you with empty hands, for I do not ask you, Lord, to count my works. All our justice is blemished in your eyes. I wish, then, to be clothed in your own justice and to receive from your love the eternal possession of yourself.⁶³

St. Therese of Lisieux

Indeed we also work, but we are only collaborating with God who works, for his mercy has gone before us. It has gone before us so that we may be healed, and follows us so that once healed, we may be given life; it goes before us so that we may be called, and follows us so that we may be glorified; it goes before us so that we may live devoutly, and follows us so that we may always live with God: for without him we can do nothing.⁵¹

St. Augustine

SANCTIFYING GRACE:
“Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abide in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in Me.” (John 15:4).

Sanctifying grace stays in the soul. It’s what makes the soul holy; it gives the soul supernatural life. More properly, it is supernatural life. It prepares our human nature to be in the presence of the Trinity. Sanctifying grace is INTERNAL, and transforming.  It is completely unmerited, an undeserved gift from God.  Sanctifying grace prepares our imperfect human nature for the perfection of Heaven.

ACTUAL GRACE:
Actual grace, by contrast, is a supernatural push or encouragement. It’s transient. It doesn’t live in the soul, but acts on the soul from the outside, so to speak. It’s a supernatural kick in the pants. It gets the will and intellect moving so we can seek out and keep sanctifying grace. It is to actual grace that our free will can respond - we can cooperate with or reject that "kick in the pants", or supernatural nudge from God.

THEREFORE

1. God gives actual grace to wake us up and prepare us for a challenge (I've elsewhere called this "knockingon the doors of our hearts").
2. In a state of heightened awareness and concern, we reach out tentatively to God, or to something beyond ourselves, in order to respond to the challenge. (Or, by our own free will, we ignore this "nudge".)
3. Now that we are receptive to his reality, God gives actual grace to make us aware of himself, his Word or his Spirit. (Notice, our job is simply receptive - being open to the grace received)
4. We call out to God as a potential answer to an existential problem.
5. God offers the gifts of faith and hope. (Those who seek find!)
6. We respond with acceptance of his reality and with trust. (Our response to His grace is free will)
7. God completes the gift with the gift of his Spirit, giving us the theological gifts of faith, hope and love.
8. We respond in love and in acts (sacrificial works) of faith, hope and love.
9. God transforms our spirit a step closer to his own nature. We acquire theological virtue as an enduring predisposition (habit). This is the gift of sanctification.

God is the first step, and the last step.  He initiates, He completes.   He knocks (actual grace), we answer (free will), He transforms (sanctifying grace). 

Peter Kreeft on fated vs free:

GRACE DEFINED 
1996 Our justification comes from the grace of God. 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.⁴⁶
1997 Grace is a participation in the life of God. It introduces us into the intimacy of Trinitarian life: by Baptism the Christian participates in the grace of Christ, the Head of his Body. As an "adopted son" he can henceforth call God "Father," in union with the only Son. He receives the life of the Spirit who breathes charity into him and who forms the Church.
1998 This vocation to eternal life is supernatural. It depends entirely on God's gratuitous initiative, for he alone can reveal and give himself. It surpasses the power of human intellect and will, as that of every other creature.⁴⁷
1999 The grace of Christ is the gratuitous gift that God makes to us of his own life, infused by the Holy Spirit into our soul to heal it of sin and to sanctify it. It is the sanctifying or deifying grace received in Baptism. It is in us the source of the work of sanctification:⁴⁸

Therefore if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself.⁴⁹

2000 Sanctifying grace is an habitual gift, a stable and supernatural disposition that perfects the soul itself to enable it to live with God, to act by his love. Habitual grace, the permanent disposition to live and act in keeping with God's call, is distinguished from actual graces which refer to God's interventions, whether at the beginning of conversion or in the course of the work of sanctification.
2001 The preparation of man for the reception of grace is already a work of grace. This latter is needed to arouse and sustain our collaboration in justification through faith, and in sanctification through charity. God brings to completion in us what he has begun, "since he who completes his work by cooperating with our will began by working so that we might will it:"⁵⁰

Indeed we also work, but we are only collaborating with God who works, for his mercy has gone before us. It has gone before us so that we may be healed, and follows us so that once healed, we may be given life; it goes before us so that we may be called, and follows us so that we may be glorified; it goes before us so that we may live devoutly, and follows us so that we may always live with God: for without him we can do nothing.⁵¹

2002 God's free initiative demands man's free response, for God has created man in his image by conferring on him, along with freedom, the power to know him and love him. The soul only enters freely into the communion of love. God immediately touches and directly moves the heart of man. He has placed in man a longing for truth and goodness that only he can satisfy. The promises of "eternal life" respond, beyond all hope, to this desire:

If at the end of your very good works . . ., you rested on the seventh day, it was to foretell by the voice of your book that at the end of our works, which are indeed "very good" since you have given them to us, we shall also rest in you on the sabbath of eternal life.⁵²

2003 Grace is first and foremost the gift of the Spirit who justifies and sanctifies us. But grace also includes the gifts that the Spirit grants us to associate us with his work, to enable us to collaborate in the salvation of others and in the growth of the Body of Christ, the Church. There are sacramental graces, gifts proper to the different sacraments. There are furthermore special graces, also called charisms after the Greek term used by St. Paul and meaning "favor," "gratuitous gift," "benefit."⁵³ Whatever their character - sometimes it is extraordinary, such as the gift of miracles or of tongues - charisms are oriented toward sanctifying grace and are intended for the common good of the Church. They are at the service of charity which builds up the Church.⁵⁴
2004 Among the special graces ought to be mentioned the graces of state that accompany the exercise of the responsibilities of the Christian life and of the ministries within the Church:

Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; he who teaches, in his teaching; he who exhorts, in his exhortation; he who contributes, in liberality; he who gives aid, with zeal; he who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.⁵⁵

Really, HOW do they know this stuff????

The following is our conversation on the way home from church today.  We were talking about John the Baptist, as that's who Quinn will be playing in this year's Christmas pageant.  We were reciting the line where John says "I baptize with water, but there is one who comes after me who will baptize with the Holy Spirit."  That led to a discussion about what "baptizing with the Holy Spirit" means.

Colby: "But Mom, how can each of us have the Holy Spirit in us?  There's just ONE Holy Spirit!"  So we talked about the Holy Spirit being uncontainable, like God is uncontainable - having the ability to be everywhere at once, without losing any piece of Himself. 

Quinn: "So, God made the Holy Spirit?" 

Mom: "No.  The Holy Spirit IS God.  And God always was.  God just IS.  Everything else is created.  God has no beginning and no end."  Which led to talks about infinity, and things that are created, which led to angels.

Quinn: "Mom, some angels are soldiers".

Mom: "Yes, it seems so.  Some are messengers, some are soldiers."

Colby: "So do soldiers here become angels when they die?"

Mom: "No.  People don't become angels.  Angels are angels - God created them separately from us."

Quinn: "But if angels have jobs, what is OUR job when we die?"

Mom: "I'm not entirely sure, but I think our job when we're in heaven is to pray for those that are still here on earth!"

Colby: "Oh, like we ask someone down here to pray for us."

Mom: "Yeah.  Except they're up THERE, with God already.  Their prayers are really powerful."

Quinn: "Oh, that's right, Mom.  Their job is kind of just the opposite of the angels.  Angels are messengers from God to us.  People in heaven, their  job is to take our messages to God!"

Mom: "I guess you're right, Quinn.   Like, we could ask Grandma Fran or Grandpa Phil to pray for us.  Or Aunt Dorothy, because they're up in Heaven with God now."

Quinn: "Aunt Dorothy just died.  She's not up in heaven yet."

Colby: "Yeah.  you don't go STRAIGHT there.  It takes some time first."

OK.  This stopped me cold, because I have never, never, never... I swear NEVER.... talked to my boys about purgatory.  They are SEVEN.  It just never came up. So --- where did THAT come from???

Mom: "So, how do you know THAT?"

Quinn: "I just know."

Colby: "Yeah, it doesn't work that way, Mom."

Mom: "So, if they're not in heaven yet, where are they?"

Quinn: "Well, their body is in the ground.  And they're not all the way up with God yet.  They're just kind of...waiting."

Colby: "They don't have a body anymore, Mom, but they're not yet with God."

Quinn: "Kind of like a ghost, but not really."

Mom: "Ok.  So, are ghosts kind of like souls of people that got lost?"

Colby: "NO ONE gets lost on their way to Heaven, Mom.  Jesus leads them there."

Quinn: "Yeah.  God guides them up.  Like a magnet."

Mom: "Well, the Church teaches that there IS a waiting place, because nothing impure or unclean can enter heaven and be with God.  Even though Jesus died so that we can be with Him in heaven, we have to 'clean up' first, like we're getting ready to go to a big wedding feast."

Quinn: "Yeah, that's what it's like, Mom."

I recognize these little moments in my boys' life, these relevatory little moments, when I glimpse something deep at work in their little souls - something I certainly didn't plant there.  HOW DO THEY KNOW, if I or noone else ever taught them??  They just do.  And it amazes me every single time.

Faith vs Works

Imagine that you are a father, who has a wayward teenage son.  He goes on a rampage, rebelling against your rules, the rules of society, and unfortunately.... ends up in jail.  You leave him in jail over night, but then - after all, he's your son - you go and bail him out, and take him home.  He's going to be living with you from now on.  You love him regardless, but when he's under your roof - if he wants to be there in the house with you where there is abundant food, warmth and security -  he has to live by your rules.  He has to be on the straight and narrow.  You have expectations. 

If any ex-con off the street shows up at this father's door, and asks for free room and board, says he'll follow all the house rules - do you think you or any or us would say "Sure! Come on in!" ??? Not on your life. He is not family. He is a stranger.   We would say, as Jesus did "I never knew you".

Our Father is no different.  We did not "merit" our release from jail - in fact, we deserved to stay in the slammer for ever.  But, He loves us.  He wants us with Him, at home in Heaven, where we belong.  This is not a free pass, though.   He has expectations of us.  He demands obedience.  And if we break His rules, we are choosing not to live under His roof.   He has given us His law.  And the fufillment of the law is LOVE.  Further, our Father isn't going to take in just any ex-con under His roof - only His own child.  We become children of God through baptism, receiving the seal of the Holy Spirit on our soul.  Our faith is the result of that mark of the Holy Spirit.  We are His. He is ours.  But, in order to be with Him, we still need to be obedient to His rules.   If we "abide in Him", He will "abide in us."  He is there to guide us, help us, teach us - because He wants us with Him.  But ultimately - we need to make the choice to obey or not.  To choose to live where we are loved and safe, with our Father. 

We did not earn this love from our Father, or His magnanimous gift of salvation. He loves us regardless of how miserable we have been.  And we can't "earn" a place in Heaven without knowing our Father intimately, as a child of His very own.  But we can choose to "abide with Him" by our very actions, by living that love in our day to day lives, just as He commands us to do.

There IS NO DICHOTOMY between faith and works. It is a false divide in our Father's house.

Regarding reformation

A quote by Peter Kreeft expressed something eloquently that I have long known, but was unable to put into words.  He talks about the Church being a hypocrite at times in it's history - and while that's not necessarily a virtue, it's actually been BENEFICIAL at times.  Here are his words:

"No matter how morally bad the Church had gotten in the Renaissance, it never taught heresy. I was impressed with its very hypocrisy: even when it didn’t raise its practice to its preaching, it never lowered its preaching to its practice. Hypocrisy, someone said, is the tribute vice pays to virtue." (Read more here.  Peter Kreeft is the closest thing to C.S. Lewis we have around today, in my opinion). 

We can trust what the Church teaches - even when those members of the church body are sinful.  Even when they are hypocrites - saying one thing and doing another.  We are all imperfect.  But that Deposit of Faith, handed down meticulously from generation to generation from Christ himself through his Apostles, can be trusted.  Just as the Declaration of Independence, U.S. Constitution, and Bill of Rights are still AMAZING and BRILLIANT documents of our American ideals - even when Congress, or the President, or any of us for that matter, act contrary to them. The Church has had power-mongers at the helm, made bad choices, harbored sex offenders.  Yes.  Evil men have infiltrated, imperfect men have made mistakes.  Reformation (in it's true sense, of returning to the "straight path" - not changing to something "new and novel") is always a good thing when it is needed.  But the Deposit of the Faith remains unchanged throughout all of Christian history.  That is our "straight path".  The WAY.  And THAT is what I trust.