Friday, February 1, 2013
423. What is the grace that justifies?
(Comp 423) That grace is the gratuitous
gift that God gives us to make us participants in his trinitarian life and able
to act by his love. It is called habitual, sanctifying or deifying grace
because it sanctifies and divinizes us. It is supernatural because it depends
entirely on God’s gratuitous initiative and surpasses the abilities of the
intellect and the powers of human beings. It therefore escapes our experience.
“In brief”
(CCC 2021) Grace is the help God gives us to respond to our
vocation of becoming his adopted sons. It introduces us into the intimacy of
the Trinitarian life.
To deepen and
explain
(CCC 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 (Cf. Jn 1:12-18; 17:3; Rom 8:14-17; 2
Pet 1:3-4). (CCC 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. (CCC 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 (Cf. 1 Cor 2:7-9).
Reflection
(CCC 2005) Since it belongs to the supernatural order, grace
escapes our experience and cannot be
known except by faith. We cannot therefore rely on our feelings or our works to
conclude that we are justified and saved (Cf. Council of Trent (1547): DS
1533-1534). However, according to the Lord's words - "Thus you will know
them by their fruits" (Mt 7:20) - reflection on God's blessings in our
life and in the lives of the saints offers us a guarantee that grace is at work
in us and spurs us on to an ever greater faith and an attitude of trustful
poverty. A pleasing illustration of this attitude is found in the reply of St.
Joan of Arc to a question posed as a trap by her ecclesiastical judges:
"Asked if she knew that she was in God's grace, she replied: 'If I am not,
may it please God to put me in it; if I am, may it please God to keep me
there'" (Acts of the trial of St. Joan of Arc).
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment