By RAYMOND DE SOUZA, KM
Part 3
In the previous article, we investigated the nature, purpose, and work of actual grace. In this article, we will look at sanctifying grace.
We have seen that actual grace, although supernatural, is transient, not permanent. It is like an electric current which, passing for an instant through the wire wound around an iron bar, gives the bar a momentary magnetic power.
It is different from sanctifying grace, because sanctifying grace is both supernatural and permanent. Actual grace enables us to act the part of friends of God, whereas sanctifying grace makes us friends of God. It is like the electric power in a storage battery.
Can a sinner receive actual grace? Yes. Both the just and the sinner receive actual graces: to the just, it is given to bring him closer to holiness; and to the sinner, to bring him to repentance and conversion. A person may be in the state of sin and yet receive actual graces, because God gives them to everyone.
But the state of sanctifying grace is opposed to the state of sin. Both cannot exist in the soul at the same time. One excludes the other, as light excludes darkness. We are either in the state of sin or in the state of sanctifying grace. There is no in between position.
“He who is not with me is against me,” said our Lord Jesus Christ. “No man can serve two masters,” He also said. “Not all those who say, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven; but those who do the will of my Father who is in heaven, shall enter therein,” He added.
That is why people who live in an adulterous relationship cannot receive Holy Communion, regardless of their subjective intentions. Today’s debate among some bishops in Europe and the United States to give Communion to those who are divorced and remarried in the civil court — without a proper declaration of annulment — are in fact deceiving the people they profess to help.
Those bishops are encouraging sins of sacrilege and endangering the salvation of those people — as well as endangering their own.
But there is no such opposition between actual grace and sinfulness, because actual grace does not make the soul holy — only sanctifying grace can do that. Actual grace spurs us toward holiness. Hence it is given to the sinner and the unbeliever as well as to the just. It is in fact the very means God uses to draw all erring souls to Him.
How does one merit sanctifying grace? First, let us make it clear that good works are necessary for one to merit a supernatural reward. One cannot break God’s Commandments with impunity, and expect to go to Heaven. To merit a supernatural reward is to have a claim to it due to some service or good work done.
To truly merit a reward from God, the following conditions are required:
On our part, good works, that is, virtuous acts done freely in the state of grace and from a supernatural motive. Such acts have a special dignity or worth in the sight of God: They are the acts of His friends, performed with the aid of His actual grace, acts like those of our Lord Jesus Christ.
On the part of God, the promise to reward us. Strictly speaking, a sinner — that is, a person who is in state of mortal sin — cannot merit any reward properly so-called, because he is not in the state of grace; but, by cooperating with actual grace, he establishes a claim on God’s mercy, and is said to merit imperfectly the further graces he needs for his conversion.
Can we merit any reward from God after death? No, we cannot. The ability and opportunity to perform good works comes to an end with our death. Scripture is very clear in this regard: “It is appointed for men to die once, and after that comes judgment” (Heb. 9:27). At death, all opportunity of merit ceases. So, let us take advantage of today to respond to God’s calls, as we cannot guarantee that we will be around tomorrow.
When we speak of “good works,” we must clarify that God has no need whatsoever of our good works. The good works by which we merit are not of any benefit to God, as we read in the Gospel: “When you have done all that is commanded you, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty’” (Luke 17:10).
But God our Lord, in His infinite love for us, has promised to reward us. It is precisely because of His promise that we can truly merit. By our good works, sanctified by God’s mercy, we can truly merit eternal life. St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that we can merit an increase of sanctifying grace and of glory hereafter. God’s mercy and love for us are truly infinite: He first freely gives us the actual grace to the sinner, to spur him to convert.
When the sinner is touched by actual grace and opens his heart, God freely gives him the sanctifying grace — an entirely free gift! And from then on, any good work performed by the sinner merits a reward from God. . . .
In other words, our Lord’s love and mercy are so amazing that He promises to reward us if we perform a good deed. But we cannot perform the deed without His help. So, He helps us to perform the deed and then gives us the reward He had promised! It is as if He Himself does the good deed through us in order to reward us — but we must be faithful.
Our Lord Jesus Christ says to all whom He had mentioned in the beatitudes, “Rejoice and be glad for your reward is great in heaven” (Matt. 5:12). And in the Apocalypse He says to us, “Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life” (Apoc. 2:10).
How can we lose our merits? We lose our merits by mortal sin. We can have them restored when sanctifying grace is recovered, after a faithful and contrite Confession.
The doctrines of original sin, the redemption, and grace, are so intimately related, that the denial of any one of them leads to a denial of the other two. And in the history of the Church there have been some people who left her because they denied the true teaching, thereby spreading doctrinal confusion and errors in the doctrines they invented.
Next article: Heresies that contaminated the faith of God’s people.
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(Raymond de Souza, KM, is available to speak at Catholic events anywhere in the free world in English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese. Please email SacredHeartMedia@Outlook.com or visit www.RaymonddeSouza.com or phone 507-450-4196 in the United States.)
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