DIVINE GRACE

By the divine virtue of hope we trust
firmly that God will give us eternal happiness
and the means to obtain it. Hope is
therefore a firm trust. Its motive is the
fidelity of God to His promises ; that He
can fulfil these promises we know from His
omnipotence. By one word He made
heaven and earth out of nothing; He preserves
them continually in being, and rules
all things by His providence. He is all-
powerful ; He can do all things ; He can,
therefore, also make us supremely happy for
all eternity. He wishes to make us happy
because He is all-merciful and loves us. He
has shown His love and mercy toward
us in innumerable ways : He has created us ;
when we fell into sin, He redeemed us.
"God so loved the world as to give His
only-begotten Son that whosoever believeth
in Him, may not perish, but may have life
everlasting." 1


Jesus lived for thirty-three
years upon the earth, "going about doing
good and healing all." For thirty-three
years He instructed us in the way of salvation,
and gave us an example that, as
He had done we also should do. 2 Finally
He offered Himself a sacrifice for the Redemption
of the world. Surely we cannot
doubt His love and mercy, and hence His
will to make us happy. God is faithful to
fulfil His promises. "Let us hold fast the
confession of our hope without wavering (for
He is faithful that hath promised)." 3


1 John 3. 16.
2 John 13. 15.
3 Heb. 10. 23.

To be continued...

Since, then, God's fidelity to His promises,
founded in His omnipotence and mercy
toward us, is the motive of our hope, our
hope must be firm ; it is infallible and absolutely
certain, as far as God is concerned.
There cannot be the least doubt that He
wished us to be forever happy in heaven;
likewise we cannot have the least doubt but
that He is all-powerful and therefore able to
make us happy. " Hope confoundeth not." 1
We know that "no one hath hoped in the
Lord and hath been confounded," 2 and that
"They that trust in the Lord shall be as
Mount Sion : he shall not be moved forever." 3
God wishes all men to be saved and come to
the knowledge of His Son ; He gives every
one sufficient grace, so that no one need be
lost. For this Christ came into the world,
and for this He suffered and died on the
cross.


On account of the certainty it gives
us, hope is often compared to an anchor.
As long as a ship is held by its anchor, it
can resist the waves and the storm that may
be raging around it; but as soon as it
breaks loose, it is given over to the mercy
of the storm. So it is with hope; as long
as we are firm in hope, we will fix our eyes
upon the eternal reward promised us, and
no matter how strong the passions may be
within us, or how much the world may
strive to lead us into sin, we will be able to
resist them. If passion represents to us
some pleasure of the senses, divine hope
opposes to it the expectation of eternal
happiness which we are sure to obtain if we
are faithful. If the world represents something
to us as valuable, hope points to God.
Hope shows us the possession of God Himself
and eternal happiness, the insignificance
and worthlessness of the pleasures and of the
goods of this world, as compared to God, so
that heaven at once appears before our minds,
and we are preserved from sin, because by
hope we are anchored to God. By hope we
are led to despise the pleasure which lasts
but a moment, in order to obtain the happiness
which has no end.


To be continued...


1 Rom. 5. 5.
2 Ecclus. 2. 11.
3 Psalm 124. 1.

The omnipotence, mercy, and fidelity
of God cannot be frustrated ; our hope,
that God will make us happy and will
give us the necessary means to reach that happiness,
is absolutely certain. God will certainly
keep His promises. However, we
must remember that He has not promised
to give us heaven without our doing something
on our part to deserve so great a
reward. He has promised us eternal happiness
if we are faithful to Him. "If thou
wilt enter into life, keep the commandments." 1
To obtain heaven we must cooperate
with God's grace ; we must accept it
and use it by doing good works. God has
given us free will, and He gives us His grace
so that we can do that which is pleasing to
Him.


However, because we are not always
certain to cooperate with the grace of God, it
happens, despite the certainty which divine
hope gives us, that we are not absolutely
certain of going to heaven. Hope is certain
and infallible as far as God is concerned ;
He will certainly give us the necessary grace,
and if we accept this grace, He will certainly
give us heaven; but God wishes us
to show our good will and fidelity toward
Him, and for this reason He has promised
us heaven conditionally, — provided we cooperate
with His grace and keep the commandments.
Now, since we cannot be certain that
we shall always do all that is demanded
on our part, it follows that some
uncertainty remains as regards our final salvation.
For this reason the Apostle, St. Paul,
warns us, "With fear and trembling work out
vour salvation." 2 Hope does not cast out
fear ; we must still fear lest we be lost, not
because God will be unfaithful to His promises,
but because we are not certain that we
shall always cooperate with the grace of God.
The certainty of hope comes from God ; the
uncertainty and fear comes from us. God is
faithful, and will do His part in our salvation ;
but we are weak and changeable, and may
neglect the grace which God gives us.


To be continued...


1 Matt. 19. 17.
2 Philip. 2. 12.

The heretical reformers of the sixteenth century
taught that we must have absolute assurance,
that we are just and belong to the
number of the elect, and that by this
assurance we are justified. They taught that,
as long as one had such assurance, he could not
be lost. The Church teaches us with the
Apostle not to put our trust in our own
justice but in God. St. Paul said, "He that
thinketh himself to stand, let him take heed
lest he fall." 1 We should fear, not that God
will not give us sufficient grace to be saved,
but lest we be deficient in cooperating with
the grace of God. We must fear our own
weakness and hence watch and pray.
Assurance in our own righteousness will not save
us. "They that fear the Lord have hoped
in the Lord: He is their helper and their
protector." 2


Hope is necessary for salvation. The
virtue of hope is infused into the soul with
sanctifying grace, and resides in the soul
with grace. As it is impossible to be saved
without grace, so it is impossible to obtain
salvation without the virtue of divine hope.
If we have not the virtue of hope, we have
not grace ; since the divine virtues always
accompany sanctifying grace. God promised
the eternal happiness of heaven in
order that, by hoping to obtain it, we might
the better be moved to tend toward happiness.
He wishes us, therefore, to hope for
heaven and the means to obtain it. If we
have not hope in God, we doubt His fidelity
to His promises, and this is to insult and
offend Him. To obtain grace and salvation,
it is necessary to pray. We must ask God
for His powerful aid ; but how could we pray
properly, unless we hoped to receive the gifts
for which we are asking? We see, therere,
that hope is just as necessary as prayer,
since prayer must be confident. A prayer,
through which we do not expect to receive
what we ask, is no prayer ; it is an insult to
God. Hope gave strength to the martyrs ;
had they not had Christian hope and hence
trusted firmly that God would reward them,
they would never have been able to bear the
sufferings they were made to undergo for
the sake of their faith.


To be continued...

1 1 Cor. 10. 12.
2 Psalm 113. 11.

Hope has been the power that
sustained all true Christians,
and led them to lead good and pious lives.
Without hope in God and in the reward
promised to them that love Him, they would
not have withstood the temptations and dangers
of the world. It was on account of this
that they lived good Christian lives.
"We should live soberly, and justly and godly in
this world, looking for the blessed hope" was
the exhortation of St. Paul to Titus.1 Hope
will also be our strength in the time of trial
and temptation; then we too, like St. Paul,
shall be consoled in the thought, "that the
sufferings of this time are not worthy to
be compared with the glory to come, that
shall be revealed in us." 2


1 Titus 2. 12, 13.
2 Rom. 8. 18.


Coming up... ON DIVINE CHARITY

ON DIVINE CHARITY

What is charity ?
Charity is a divine virtue by which we love God above
all things for His own sake, and our neighbor as ourselves
for the love of God.



Charity is a divine virtue; it comes from
God. Charity is not a natural but a super-
natural love of God. By reason of our
natural powers we can love God as our
creator and our last end; but this love is
infinitely below the love of God which comes
through the virtue of charity. It differs as
the love of a servant differs from that of a
son. A servant may love his master, but he
will not dare, like the child, to run up to him
and embrace him ; he loves him, so to speak,
from a distance, whereas the child is closely
united to the father and feels happy in his
embrace. By our natural reason we know
God to exist, and we know that He has
created us. On account of this we are
entirely His, we belong to Him, we are His
slaves, since we owe our being to Him. By
faith we know that from slaves He has made
us sons and heirs. Likewise by our natural
powers we can and should love Him as our
master; by the virtue of divine charity we
love Him as our Father. This love of God
differs from the natural love which we can
have for God as much as heaven differs from
earth, or as God, whose gift charity is, differs
from man. Charity, like faith and hope, is
infused into the soul as a free gift of God ;
it is undeserved. No work of a creature can
merit the gift of divine charity. "The
charity of God is poured forth in our hearts
by the Holy Ghost, who is given to us." 1


1 Rom. 5. 5.


To be continued...

By the divine virtue of charity we love God
above all other objects because He is all-good
in Himself and worthy of our love. Goodness
and excellence move us to love. God
is all-perfect, He is all-good, He is all-beautiful,
He is to be our happiness for eternity.
These perfections of God we know through
divine faith; through faith we know the
supernatural goodness of God toward us.
God's goodness known supernaturally is,
therefore, the object of divine charity or love.
Charity inclines our hearts to love God
above all other things so that we are prepared
rather to lose all than to be separated
from God, the highest good. The love of
God will make us detest sin because sin is
opposed to God ; it will make us do the will
of God and keep His commandments. "If
any man love Me he will keep My commandments,"
said Our Lord.


To be continued...

One of the most powerful means to arouse
in us the love of God is to consider His
mercy and goodness toward us. He has
called us to be His children, and gives us
continually the supernatural help of grace
to make ourselves worthy sons of God.
When man had sinned and was entirely
helpless to rise of himself from sin, God sent
His only-begotten Son to become man and
redeem us from sin and death. "God so
loved the world as to give His only-begotten
Son: . . . that the world may be saved by
Him." 1 If He has loved us so much, should
we not also love Him ? St. Augustine says
that if we were slow to love God, we should
at least now not be slow to love Him in
return. Charity will move us to love God
on account of His infinite perfections, and
among these His mercy toward us appeals
most strongly to our hearts. His love
toward us leads us to gratitude, and from
gratitude we easily proceed to love. This
motive St. Paul proposes to us when he
says, "The charity of God presseth us . . .
Christ died for all, that they also who live,
may not now live to themselves but unto
Him who died for them and rose again." 2


Jesus is God, and if we love Jesus, we
love God. We can therefore be moved to
divine love most effectually in considering
God in Jesus, the God-Man. That men
might be more effectually moved to love
God, "The goodness and kindness of God
our Saviour appeared: not by the works of
justice which we have done, but according
to His mercy, He saved us." 3 How easy
God has made charity, which is the first and
highest command, in letting us contemplate
the goodness of God in the Child laid for our
sake in the crib of Bethlehem ; in Our Lord's
going about instructing the people and
healing the sick, for our sake carrying the
heavy cross and dying upon it ! Such love
cannot but arouse our love in return.


1 John 3. 16, 17.
2 2 Cor. 5. 14, 15.
3 Titus 3. 4, 5.


To be continued...

The love of God must be above the love of
all other things. God is most perfect, and the
perfections of all other things are from Him.
He is our last end ; all other things are given
us only as means to reach this end. This
requires that we value God above all created
things. It may happen that because we do
not see God, and created things are present
to us, that we seem to love them more intensely;
thus we might be tempted to think
that we love our parents more than God.
Intensity is not required for the love of God
above all things. A man who is suffering
greatly from thirst may desire a drink of
water with more intensity than he desires a
large sum of money, and still he may not
wish to give that sum of money for a drink
of water. He still values the sum of money
more than a glass of water ; so, also, we may
love some person more intensely than God,
and yet not be ready to offend God to please
that person. If this is the case, we love God
more than that person ; we are ready to lose
that person rather than lose God by offend
ing Him by sin. Our love of God shows
itself in the observance of the commandments
and the avoidance of sin. When we
keep the commandments and avoid sin, we
prefer God and His holy will to all the
pleasures of creatures; we prefer Him to
possessing things which we cannot obtain
without offending Him; we prefer God to
unlawful pleasure; we prefer God to our
own will and inclinations. This is to love
God above all things.


To be continued...

Charity makes us love God above all
things on account of His infinite goodness
and perfections, but it also makes us love our
neighbor as ourselves for the love of God.
If we love another on account of his natural
excellence and goodness, we love him by a
natural love; charity is supernatural. We
must love him out of some supernatural
motive; then we love him for the sake of
God. If we like to associate with another
because he is kind and congenial, our love is
a natural one: we should love all because
we love God, and God wishes them all to be
His children. He calls them all to be eternally
happy with Him in heaven. When
we love anyone we wish him good ; so by
the love of God we take delight in God's
perfections, and wish that they be known and
praised by all creatures. In like manner we
should love our neighbor, i.e. all people.
We should wish them supernatural good
because this is God's will. God loves them,
and by that love they become the friends of
God, and, if we love God, we must also love
His friends. We see from this that our
charity toward our neighbor is founded on
his friendship with God. In our neighbor
we love the image of God whom we love
above all things. A child that loves its
parents will also love the picture of its parents.
We are children of God, and by grace
the picture or image of God is in a supernatural
way impressed upon the just. For
the sake of the friendship which exists between
God and the just we love them also.
They are children of God as we are, and,
therefore, they are our brothers. God is the
cause of our loving them.


To be continued...

Do we by divine charity love only the just
who are in the grace of God, and hence are His
children, and not also those that are in a state
of sin ? No, we also love the sinners ; not
in as much as they are sinners, but in as
much as they are men, and are called to be
children of God. God wishes them to detest
sin and return to Him ; He wants them to
be forever happy with Him in heaven.
We, as God's friends, wish the same as He
does; we wish them supernatural grace and
happiness. They are called to be friends of
God, and we love them and wish them that
friendship. As sinners we do not love them,
i.e. we hate sin, and by sin they are enemies
of God; but because they are called to be
saints and friends of God, and it is the will
of God that they become His friends, we
unite our will with God's, and do all in our
power that the will of God be done. This
love of our neighbor is commanded by God.
When a Pharisee asked Our Lord, "Master,
which is the great commandment in the
law ? Jesus said to him : Thou shalt love
the Lord, thy God, with thy whole heart, and
with thy whole soul, and with thy whole
mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment;
and the second is like to this:
Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." 1


1 Matt. 22. 36-39.


To be continued...

St. John puts the characteristic of charity in
love of the neighbor. He says that we know
that if we love our neighbors, we have
charity, and therefore the grace of God, since
they cannot be separated. "We know that
we have passed from death to life, because
we love the brethren. He that loveth not
(the brethren) abideth in death. Whosoever
hateth his brother is a murderer, and you
know that no murderer hath eternal life
abiding in himself." 1 We cannot love God
without loving also our neighbor because, if
we love God, we are willing to do His will,
and we will then also keep His commandment
of love; if we love God, we will love those
whom He loves, His friends. If we love
God, we love His image ; and this is found in
every soul, endowed with intellect and free
will, and still more in one washed in the
blood of Jesus Christ, and made by grace conformable
to the image of the Son of God.2


1 I John 3. 14.
2 Rom. 8. 29.


To be continued...

The divine virtue of charity is absolutely
necessary for salvation. Without grace
there is no justification, and we cannot have
grace and justification without the virtue of
divine charity. It is so intimately connected
with grace that many consider it to be the
same as grace. Charity does not remain in
the soul when it is deprived of sanctifying
grace through mortal sin. By grace we become
children of God, and we cannot be His
children without loving Him. One who is
without sanctifying grace is an enemy of
God, and hence cannot at the same time
have the love of God which would unite him
to God as His friend. If we have divine
charity, we will also love our neighbor, since
divine charity makes us love, not only God,
but also those whom He loves, and God
loves the just, and His love pursues the
sinner that he be converted and live.


CONTINUARÁ...

Of all the virtues the most excellent is
charity. Of this St. Paul assures us saying,
"If I speak with the tongues of men and of
angels, and have not charity, I am become as
sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal ; and if
I should have prophecy, and should know all
mysteries, and all knowledge : and if I should
have all faith, so that I could remove mountains,
and have not charity, I am nothing;
and if I should distribute all my goods to feed
the poor, and if I should deliver my body to
be burned and have not charity, it profiteth
me nothing. . . . Now there remain faith,
hope and charity: these three; but the
greater of these is charity." 1 Our Lord, as we
have seen, called the commandment of charity
the greatest and first commandment.
All other commandments are summed up in
this, — if we love God, we obey Him; if we
love Him, we love our neighbor, and hence
will not do him any injustice ; if we love God,
we will love to go to Mass and to receive the
sacraments ; we will not injure any one in his
life, possessions, or good name; if we love
God, we will avoid everything that might sully
the purity of our souls and make them displeasing
in the eyes of God. We might say
with St. Augustine, "Love God and do as
you please," because if we love God we will
not do anything except the will of God.


Charity unites us with God and renders us
His friends ; its object is God in His perfections.
God also is the object of the other
divine virtues, but the motive is different, as
by faith we know God, and by hope we tend
toward Him. God is the object of these
virtues, inasmuch as through Him we
receive the knowledge of the highest truth,
and we are made happy by the possession of
the highest good. In charity, however, we
rest in God ; God's perfections in themselves
are its motive. We love God for His own
sake and not only because He will constitute
our happiness.


1 I Cor. 13. 1 seqq.


To be continued...

We may love God, it is true,
because He is infinitely good to us, but His
goodness is a perfection which we know
through His goodness toward us; we will
still love Him for His perfections. It is
through His mercy and goodness to us that
we come to understand better His infinite
goodness.Charity is the perfection of all
other virtues ; without charity, faith and
hope may be found in the soul, but without
charity they are dead and cannot bring any
one to eternal life. Charity is the life of the
other virtues ; it directs them to their proper
end. Without charity no one is really virtuous
and pleasing to God ; with charity he
becomes a child and intimate friend of God.


Faith is the root and foundation of justification,
but charity is the life which makes it
live ; without charity the root will not bring
forth the fruit of good works, and faith without
works is dead in itself. Charity gives
value and merit to good works ; without charity
we can do good, but nothing that is meritorious
of heaven.


To be continued...

St. Bernard says, "The
soul is the life of the body, through it the
body moves and feels ; charity is the life of
faith because ' faith worketh by charity,' as
we read in the apostle.1 Hence, when charity
grows cold, faith dies, as the body dies
when the soul leaves it."2 Charity is the
perfection of faith and hope. By charity we
are united to God ; in the closest friendship
we embrace Him whom we know by faith.
By charity we obtain, even here upon earth,
the possession of that supreme good which
we hope for in heaven. Faith and hope may
remain in one who has lost the sonship of
God, but charity can be possessed only by
the children of God. It is so precious that
its possession marks us out as sons of God
and heirs of heaven. "There is nothing
sweeter than love, nothing stronger, nothing
higher, nothing wider, nothing more pleasing,
nothing fuller, nothing better in heaven
or on earth, because love is born in God and
rests in God alone. ... A great cry in the
ears of God is the ardent affection of the soul
which says, thou art my God, my love, my
all, and I am all thine."3


1 Gal. 5. 6.
2 In resurrect, serm. 2.
3 De Im. 3. 5.


To be continued...

Divine charity elevates our nature, and
makes us participate in the divine nature; it
elevates our natural affection, and makes it a
divine affection. As long as we have only
natural love we love ourselves and our
neighbor for our sake, but divine charity
makes us love God for His sake, and ourselves
and others for the sake of God.
Through grace and charity we are united in
a wonderful manner with God ; we live in
Him ; our life in the supernatural order is a
life in God, so that we can say with St. Paul,
"I live now, not I : but Christ liveth in me." 1


If through grace God becomes our life,
through charity His love becomes our love,
so that we love Him with the love with
which He loves Himself. As God loves
Himself and us on account of Himself, so, if
we have divine charity, shall we love God for
His own sake, and ourselves and others for
the sake of God whose image man is. With
this divine love all other affections must
harmonize ; no other love can interfere. Just
as the light of the sun penetrates the air and
turns all into light, so divine charity must
penetrate our whole being and dominate all
our actions. This is what we should strive
for, that we do everything out of the love of
God; that divine charity be the main-spring
of all our actions.


It is true this perfection
is not reached here upon earth. There are
many things in our lives that are imperfect
and do not spring from the love of God;
there are even things that are sinful and hence
opposed to the love of God. These imperfections
and venial sins, however, should not
keep us from striving for that perfection which
is demanded by reason of divine charity. We
shall possess this perfection in its fulness in
heaven. There all our thoughts and desires
shall be absorbed by the love of God ; here
upon earth we can strive for it and approach
it more and more. By grace we are born
for heaven : heaven is the home of the children
of God. Here we have that divine life only
imperfectly; the perfection is reserved for
heaven, where we "shall see God as He is,"
and be drawn toward Him with an irresistible love,
— a love that shall absorb our whole
being and make us unspeakably happy.


1 Gal. 2. 20.


To be continued...

Through the grace of justification God not
only remits all the sins that we have committed
and makes us His children, giving us
at the same time a right to heaven, but He
also infuses into our souls the divine virtues
of faith, hope, and charity. By faith, He
raises our natural power of understanding to
the supernatural order, and makes us know
eternal truths, which we cannot reach by the
natural power of our intellect. He reveals
to us the greatness and majesty of His being ;
by the light of our reason we can, through
the contemplation of the world, come to a
knowledge of the existence of God, but history
shows us how the pagans, who had only
their own reason to guide them, fell into all
sorts of errors concerning God, even in
those matters that can be known by the light
of reason. Besides these truths God has
made known to us the greatness of His
being, — that He is one God in three persons ;
that in His infinite love and mercy He sent
His only Son to become man and redeem us
from sin. These and many other truths
we know by faith, and faith only.


To be continued...

Hope puts before our mind a reward of which no
man could have dreamed, — a reward so great
that "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor
hath it come into the heart of man to conceive."
By natural reason we know that our
soul is immortal ; that it cannot die. We
know, too, that God rewards the good and
punishes the wicked ; but how could we expect
that God Himself would be "our reward ex
ceeding great." This comes to us through the
divine virtue of hope infused into our souls
with sanctifying grace. Our will, instructed
by the light of the intellect, can tend toward
God in love, but that love is only the love of a
slave toward his master, on whom he depends
in his very being. The divine virtue of charity
makes us love God as our Friend; it unites
us to God as our Father. It is the love of
the children of God, to which natural love
cannot be compared. These divine virtues
are in our soul, together with sanctifying
grace from which they spring ; they are to
make us true sons of our heavenly Father ;
they are to bring us to Him. In heaven,
which shall be our inheritance forever, they
shall be perfected.


Faith shall end in vision ; what we now believe
we shall then see. Hope shall end in possession ;
love shall be perfected and fill our whole being.
In this shall consist our happiness for ages without end,
—the happiness of the sons of God. "Omnipotent,
eternal God, give us an increase of
faith, hope, and charity, and that we may
merit what thou hast promised ; make us love
what thou commandest." 1


1 Oratio.Dom. XIII post Pent.


To be continued...

VII - ON THE STATE OF GRACE


Nothing defiled can enter heaven. Anyone
whose soul has on it the stain of original
sin or of any actual sin, is excluded from the
happiness of heaven. Before such a one can
enter heaven he must be justified. This justification
begins with the actual grace of
God, illumining the understanding and moving
the will. But the grace of God will not
do all. Man, too, must cooperate; he, too,
must do something. With the grace of God
he must believe, hope, begin to love God, and
repent of his sins. Thus prepared he must
receive the sacrament of Baptism or, if he be
already baptized, the sacrament of Penance.
By these sacraments he receives sanctifying
grace which justifies him.


To be continued...

By Baptism man is cleansed from original
sin as well as from any other sin that he may
have committed before Baptism. Besides the
remission of sin he also receives the remission
of all punishments due to sin, so that "there
is now no condemnation to them that are
in Christ Jesus," 1 nothing that is
displeasing to God, nothing that would prevent his
entering into the kingdom of heaven immediately,
should he die at that time. This is not all ;
besides the cleansing from sin, Baptism does
also something positive. By Baptism man is
born anew; he is made a child of God,
an heir of heaven, a member of
His holy Church. How is this all brought
about? By sanctifying grace. Through
Baptism the Holy Ghost pours into the soul
sanctifying grace together with the divine
virtues of faith, hope, and charity. Sanctifying
grace works an entire renovation in the
souls of those that are baptized. By it the
sinner becomes just ; his sins are not merely
covered over, but entirely blotted out and
forgiven, so that nothing of the former state
remains that would demand the punishment
of God. Since there is in Baptism a new
birth, and we are born of God, we become
sons of God, and "if sons, heirs also : heirs
indeed of God, and joint-heirs with Christ." 2


1 Rom. 8. I.
2 Rom. 8. 17.


To be continued...

If any one commits a mortal sin after Baptism,
he loses the grace of God and with
that all supernatural justification ; he ceases
to be an object of pleasure in the sight of
God, and is no longer His child ; he loses his
right to the inheritance of heaven. If he
should die in this state, he would be lost for
ever. To escape so terrible a condition he
must do penance and confess his sins.
Through the sacrament of Penance, he
can regain the state of grace lost by sin.
Through the sacrament of Penance he can
once more become a child of God and have
restored to him the right to his inheritance.
To him God will say, This my son was
dead, behold he liveth ; he was lost, and
behold he is found. 1


Sanctifying grace is not, like actual grace,
something given only for a short time and
then passing away; no, it remains in the
soul ; it inheres in it ; it is something permanent.


To be continued...

Sanctifying grace puts the soul in a
state of freedom from sin, and gives supernatural
holiness and justice. For this reason
we say of one who has obtained sanctifying
grace, that he is in a state of grace, or
that he has sanctifying grace ; that it dwells
in his soul, or that his soul is adorned
with sanctifying grace. God cannot give us
a greater gift than sanctifying grace.
Hence the Apostle, St. Paul, admonishes us to give
thanks. "Giving thanks to God the Father,
who hath made us worthy to be partakers of
the lot of the saints in light: who hath delivered
us from the power of darkness, and
hath translated us into the kingdom of the
Son of His love, in whom we have redemption
through His blood, the remission of sins:
who is the image of the invisible God, the
first-born of every creature;"1 that is,
before any creature was made, the Son of God
was. Through the sacraments we receive
the fruits of the Redemption, that is, we
receive the remission of our sins, and of the
punishment due to sin; we are born anew,
and so become like to Jesus, and are made
worthy of the inheritance of the kingdom of
heaven. Grace, as St. Thomas says, is the
beginning of glory just as glory is the completion
of grace. The perfect union of God
with the creature and the happiness of
heaven is a consequence of grace, which will
surely follow, if it is not impeded by mortal
sin. The smallest degree of sanctifying
grace is the beginning of this union with
God. Grace is the pledge of eternal life
and the seed from which it springs. As man
is created to the image and likeness of God,
so by his second birth he is conformed to the
image of His Son and made a child of God.


1 Col. I. 12-15.

To be continued...