A Beacon Of Light… Grace And Justification

• 2 years ago

BY FR. RICHARD D. BRETON JR.

(Editor’s Note: Fr. Richard D. Breton Jr. is a priest of the Diocese of Norwich, Conn. He received his BA in religious studies and his MA in dogmatic theology from Holy Apostles College and Seminary in Cromwell, Conn.)

• + + Welcome back to our journey through the Catechism of the Catholic Church. We are still in Part III devoted to living a Life in Christ. In last week’s column, we were reminded of the importance the law plays in our lives. Today we take another step further in understanding the law by exploring the importance of justification, grace, merit, and Christian holiness.
  
  God establishes laws, so that we His people might be led on the right path to the Promised Land and ultimately everlasting life. For God every action must lead back to Him, and every action is just. So how does justification contribute to our understanding of the law? Justification is the action of declaring or making something righteous in the sight of God. The Holy Spirit plays a very important role in this. The power of Holy Spirit enables us to take part in Christ’s Passion, where we die to sin, and through the Resurrection, we are reborn to new life. We are but branches grafted to the vine of Christ Jesus.
  
  The first work of justification, through the Holy Spirit, is conversion. Jesus begins His public ministry by proclaiming repentance: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt. 4:17). The process of justification involves man’s conversion from sin, toward forgiveness and righteousness.
  
  Justification, one might think, is only concerned with the forgiveness of sins, but there is so much more. It also involves the sanctification and the renewal of the interior life of man. Justification detaches man from sin, because sin contradicts God’s love, and purifies the heart. Righteousness is a product of justification. By it, we are able to accept God in faith through our relationship with Jesus Christ.
  
  There is a collaboration that exists between God and man. This involves God’s grace and man’s freedom. For man, this cooperation is fulfilled by an assent of faith in the word of God that brings about conversion. In the end, justification is the perfect work of God’s love, in Christ Jesus, and made manifest by the Holy Spirit.
  
  Now justification cannot happen on its own. There exists a co-agent making this possible; we call this “grace.” What is 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, n. 1996). Through grace we become participants in the life of God. It also introduces us to the Blessed Trinity, through Baptism, where we become adopted sons and daughters of Christ. It is supernatural and assists us in the journey to eternal life. It requires God’s initiative, because He alone can impart grace.
  
  Now there are two kinds of grace: sanctifying, or deifying, grace, and actual grace. Sanctifying grace is received in Baptism, given by the Holy Spirit, to heal our souls and free us from sin, readying us for sanctification. The Catechism’s definition is:
  
  “Sanctifying grace is a 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 [is] the permanent disposition to live and act in keeping with God’s call” (CCC, n. 2000).
  
  Actual graces are moments of God’s interventions where the process of conversion is either begun or brought to completion.
  
  This happens continually in our lives. God is always looking for moments to assist us with, actual grace, turning our hearts back to Him. What is so sad, is the fact that so often we miss these Godly moments and forfeit the grace we need at a particular moment in our lives.

Putting God First

Here is an example of actual grace. There is a young girl contemplating having an abortion. She got pregnant through a bad decision and doesn’t want her family to know, especially her parents. She schedules the procedure and arrives at the abortion facility. As she is walking inside, and about to cross the threshold of total despair, she feels the baby kick very hard within her womb.

That little kick wakes her up to realize there is a living child who needs her. She changes her mind and leaves, not going through with the abortion, and eventually gives birth to a beautiful baby.

The baby’s kick could be considered actual grace, God’s way of nudging her, reminding her that there is a little life within her womb vying for her love. In such moments, we are experiencing actual grace — a grace that compels us to act in our lives to put God first.

God dispenses grace freely for the purpose of assisting us on our journey of faith. Man chooses to accept or deny this free gift of God’s love. Even though each person receives grace, it is imparted according to the gifts we have received from God.

An example of this might be a person who teaches and receives the grace necessary to excel in teaching, or an ordained priest receives the “graces of Ordination” necessary to assist in his ministry to the Church.

Lastly, grace is a supernatural gift that cannot be known through earthly experiences. It is not something we feel or can see; we can only know grace by faith.

What is merit? In ordinary terms, “merit” refers to the “recompense owed by a community or a society for the action of one of its members, experienced either as beneficial or harmful, deserving reward or punishment. Merit is relative to the virtue of justice, in conformity with the principle of equality which governs it” (CCC, n. 2006).

What about in regard to our relationship with God, are we entitled to such merit? In our relationship with God, there is no strict right to any merit. This is because of the immeasurable inequality that exists between us and God. For we have received everything from God. Any merit of man before God is because of the free choice God has made in sharing grace with us. We cannot merit something we have already received. Merit cannot be owed to us if we already possess it in our creation.

By our filial adoption in Christ, we are made “co-heirs” and thus become worthy of eternal life. The merits of our good works are gifts of the divine goodness. “Grace has gone before us; now we are given what is due. . . . Our merits are God’s gifts” (CCC, n. 2009, citing St. Augustine).

Our Place In The Heavenly Kingdom

In closing we can see that justification, grace, and merit are necessary in the life of the Christian because together they help us to progress in holiness. From the first moments of creation until today, until the end of time, God’s plan for man will never change.

This plan is to assist us in achieving, as is humanly possible, perfect holiness and our place in the heavenly Kingdom.

Every gift that God gives is for the good of mankind because of the unconditional love He has for us. The purpose of the spiritual life is to enter into a more perfect union with Christ Jesus. There may be many obstacles along the way, and we may have to carry a heavy cross; but remember, there can be no holiness without a renunciation of sin and fighting the spiritual battle that lies ahead.

I close with the words of St. Gregory of Nyssa: “He who climbs never stops going from beginning to beginning, through beginnings that have no end. He never stops desiring what he already knows” (CCC, n. 2015).

When we reflect on St. Gregory’s words, we see that spiritual endurance is just that — going from beginning to beginning — every day, every situation, every conversation, every interaction, literally every moment of every year is a new beginning for us to do what we know we should do — love more fully to become the person God desires us to be on our journey from this world to everlasting life.

Next week we look at the Church’s role as mother and teacher.