YOUCAT Lesson 340
YOUCAT the catechism
for Catholic youth
340 How is God’s grace
related to our freedom?
God’s grace is freely bestowed on a person, and it seeks and
summons him to respond in complete freedom.
Grace does not compel. God’s love
wants our free assent. [2001-2002, 2022]
One can also say “No” to the offer of grace. Grace, nevertheless, is not something
external or foreign to man; it is what he actually yearns for in his deepest
freedom. In moving us by his grace, God
anticipates man’s free response.
“And Mary said, ‘Behold, I am the handmade of the Lord; let
it be done to me according to your word.’”
Luke 1:38
“Since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
they are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in
Christ Jesus.” Romans 3:23-24
2001-2002, 2022]
II. GRACE
2001 The preparation of man for the
reception of grace is already a work of grace. This latter is needed to arouse
and sustain our collaboration in justification through faith, and in
sanctification through charity. God brings to completion in us what he has
begun, "since he who completes his work by cooperating with our will began
by working so that we might will it:"( St.
Augustine, De gratia et libero
arbitrio, 17:Patrologia Latina
44,901.)50 –Catechism
of the Catholic Church, Second Edition
Indeed we also work, but we are only
collaborating with God who works, for his mercy has gone before us. It has gone
before us so that we may be healed, and follows us so that once healed, we may
be given life; it goes before us so that we may be called, and follows us so
that we may be glorified; it goes before us so that we may live devoutly, and
follows us so that we may always live with God: for without him we can do
nothing.( St. Augustine, De natura et gratia, 31:Patrologia
Latina 44,264.)51 –CCC
2002 God's free initiative demands man's free response, for God has created man in his image by
conferring on him, along with freedom, the power to know him and love him. The
soul only enters freely into the communion of love. God immediately touches and
directly moves the heart of man. He has placed in man a longing for truth and
goodness that only he can satisfy. The promises of "eternal life"
respond, beyond all hope, to this desire: --CCC
If at the end of your very good works
. . ., you rested on the seventh day, it was to foretell by the voice
of your book that at the end of our works, which are indeed "very
good" since you have given them to us, we shall also rest in you on the
sabbath of eternal life.( St.
Augustine, Conf. 13,36 51:Patrologia Latina 32,868; compare Genesis 1:31.)52 –CCC
IN BRIEF
2022 The divine initiative in the work of
grace precedes, prepares, and elicits the free response of man. Grace responds
to the deepest yearnings of human freedom, calls freedom to cooperate with it,
and perfects freedom. --CCC
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