338 GRACE

YOUCAT Lesson 338, April 10, 2015

YOUCAT the catechism for Catholic youth

338  What is grace?

By grace we mean God’s free, loving gift to us, his helping goodness, the vitality that comes from him.  Through the Cross and Resurrection, God devotes himself entirely to us and communicates himself to us in grace.  Grace is everything God grants us, without our deserving it in the least. [1996-1998, 2005, 2021]

Saint  Joan of Arc interrogated in her prison cell by the Cardinal of Winchester. When asked if she knew that she was in God's grace, Joan 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.” Painting by Hippolyte Delaroche, 1824. …..338

“Grace”, says Pope Benedict XVI, “is being looked upon by God, our being touched by his love.”  Grace is not a thing, but rather God’s communication of himself to men.  God never gives less than himself.   In grace we are in God.

“God never gives less than himself.”  St. Augustine (354-430)

[1996-1998, 2005, 2021]

II. GRACE

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.( Compare John 1:12-18; Jn 17:3; Romans 8:14-17; 2 Peter 1:3-4.)⁴⁶ –Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition

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.( Compare 1 Corinthians 2:7-9.)⁴⁷ --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): Denzinger-Schonmetzer 1533-1534.)⁵⁶ However, according to the Lord's words "Thus you will know them by their fruits"( Matthew 7:20.)⁵⁷ - 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. --CCC

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.)⁵⁸ --CCC

IN BRIEF

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. --CCC