Our parents and catechists taught us as small children that God created us to know, love, and serve Him with the end goal of being with him in Heaven for all eternity. Our human mind, especially as children, cannot conceive of the reality of Heaven or what eternal life will be like once we get there.
Sin
After the fall of man, sin entered the world, making our nature incompatible with a life with God or of the beatific vision. The beatific vision is the seeing of God face to face. God promised Adam and Eve that he would send a redeemer to reconcile us to Him and repatriate us to our heavenly home. Christ was that promised redeemer whose sacrifice reconciled us with the Father; He purchased our salvation by his death and resurrection, in which he entered willingly.
To attain heavenly life and the beatific vision, we must also willfully cooperate with God’s plan for salvation. This plan involves dying to sin and the world and carrying our cross with Christ to Calvary. Our desire and willingness to share in Jesus’ passion will result in our sharing in His resurrection. Our human nature has not changed, and we have not lost our free will; we need supernatural help to follow Christ and attain the beatific vision, that aid comes in the form of God’s grace.
Grace
Grace is an unmerited gift from God, given freely to help a person respond to the Father’s invitation to be one of His children. Grace can be actual or sanctifying. We can think of actual grace as a supernatural nudge moving a person to action consistent with God’s will. It is that tug at the heartstrings that motivates one to help the poor, or the ache in your conscious causing you to reconcile with another person. Actual grace abounds in our life daily. Sometimes we respond to actual grace, and other times we do not. Our failure to respond can be because we are not open to the reception of grace, or use our free will to reject it. When we reject God’s grace, we are effectively choosing our desires over God’s. Actual grace does not change our soul but inspires us to actions that can move us closer to salvation.
Sanctifying Grace
Sanctifying grace is a “habitual gift and supernatural disposition” that dwells within the soul allowing the soul to live in the presence of God in Heaven (CCC 2000);. Without it, the Holy Spirit cannot dwell within us. Sanctifying grace is first conferred on a soul at Baptism, washing away original sin allowing the soul to act according to God’s call to love. Sanctifying grace is also received with the Sacrament of Holy Orders. As St. Paul writes in his letter to the Romans, Christ died to sin and lives for God. Through Baptism, we also die to sin like Christ, which is the fruit of sanctifying grace. Paul tells us that we do not live under the law but under grace and that sin should have no control over us (Rom 6:6-15).
If what St. Paul says is true, then why do we sin, and what happens to our sanctifying grace when we sin? Sanctifying grace does not abolish our free will. While it gives us the strength to live according to Christ, it does not force us to do so. Like Christ, who willingly entered His passion, we must choose to follow Christ at every moment.
Actual grace (described above) can help motivate us toward the right action, but we have the free will to choose or reject it. When we commit a mortal sin, we make our souls uninhabitable to the Holy Spirit, and sanctifying grace leaves us. A soul that is not in a state of grace cannot go to Heaven, that is why we call such serious sin mortal, or deadly. The good news is that sanctifying grace can be restored, but only through the Sacrament of Reconciliation. The importance of this Sacrament is worthy of another article, but we should understand hat we are in danger of hell if we are conscious of grave sin that has separated us from God’s grace. Receiving the Eucharist while not in a state of grace further condemns us. As the Apostle wrote:
Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord (1 Cor 11:27).
Before Christ’s passion, sanctifying grace was lost to all humanity. We know that through the merits of Jesus’ death and resurrection, sanctifying grace would be restored to those who lived according to God’s law before Christ’s birth. After His death, the creed tells us, “He descended into hell.” We understand this not to mean the hell of Satan’s domain, but rather a holding place where righteous souls stayed until Christ reconciled us with the Father. Dante shows us this realm in The Inferno. From here, Jesus reclaimed the righteous souls, including our first parents, the patriarchs, and the prophets.
We see many examples of actual grace in the Old Testament. Actual grace is part of the stories of Job, Abraham, Moses, David, and many others. Sanctifying grace was available to only one soul, born before Christ’s passion, His mother, Mary. Through God’s singular grace and as a result of Christ’s merits, Mary was preserved from the stain of original sin. Her holy and immaculate conception was desired by God before all time and given to her according to his will. All souls in Heaven, whether born before or after Christ are only there as a result of the sanctifying grace granting the soul the ability to live in Heaven; this is only made possible through the merits of Jesus Christ.
The sanctifying grace that we receive at Baptism is a result of our Baptism into Christ’s passion and death. That means that Jesus calls us to share in His suffering and passion. It is for this reason that human suffering is able to be united with that of Christ for the salvation of souls. Human suffering united to Christ’s is called redemptive suffering and is one of the Church’s most beautiful teachings. Therefore, redemptive suffering is the source of great grace made possible only through the Sacrament of Baptism. St. Paul says to the Church in Corinth:
I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me (2 Cor 12:9).
There are many Catholic media presentations on redemptive suffering, why God allows evil, and so forth. The reader should explore these for a clearer understanding of the topic.
A Gift
In summary, grace is the gift that God gives us to enable us to live with him in Heaven. He freely bestows this gift by His will at Baptism made possible by the merits of Christ’s death and resurrection. We must use our free will to cooperate with God’s will and remain in a state of grace so that when we die, we may enter Heaven and achieve beatific vision. Redemptive suffering is a source of great grace and allows us to participate in the salvation of souls with Christ. Through suffering, we are perfected in grace and brought closer to God. Mortal sin removes sanctifying grace from our soul and makes the soul unable to live in Heaven with God. Sanctifying grace can only be restored through the Sacrament of Reconciliation. All of the Sacraments of the Church, especially the Holy Eucharist, help keep us in a state of grace by strengthening our souls and our intellect, making us able to resist temptation and be cooperative with God’s will.
First Published at catholicstand.com