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II. Grace
1996Our justification comes from the grace of God. Grace is favor, the free andundeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children ofGod, adoptive sons, partakers of the divine nature and of eternallife.
1997Grace is a participation in the life of God. It introduces us into the intimacyof Trinitarian life: by Baptism the Christian participates in the grace ofChrist, the Head of his Body. As an "adopted son" he can henceforthcall God "Father," in union with the only Son. He receives the lifeof the Spirit who breathes charity into him and who forms the Church.
1998This vocation to eternal life is supernatural. It depends entirely on God'sgratuitous initiative, for he alone can reveal and give himself. It surpassesthe power of human intellect and will, as that of every othercreature.
1999The grace of Christ is the gratuitous gift that God makes to us of his ownlife, infused by the Holy Spirit into our soul to heal it of sin and to sanctifyit. It is the sanctifying or deifying grace received in Baptism. It is in usthe source of the work of sanctification:
Therefore if any one is inChrist, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new hascome. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us tohimself.
2000Sanctifying grace is an habitual gift, a stable and supernatural dispositionthat perfects the soul itself to enable it to live with God, to act by hislove. Habitual grace, the permanent disposition to live and act in keeping withGod's call, is distinguished from actual graces which refer to God'sinterventions, whether at the beginning of conversion or in the course of thework of sanctification.
2001The 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 justificationthrough faith, and in sanctification through charity. God brings to completionin us what he has begun, "since he who completes his work by cooperatingwith our will began by working so that we might will it:"
Indeed we also work, but weare only collaborating with God who works, for his mercy has gone before us. Ithas gone before us so that we may be healed, and follows us so that oncehealed, we may be given life; it goes before us so that we may be called, andfollows us so that we may be glorified; it goes before us so that we may livedevoutly, and follows us so that we may always live with God: for without himwe can do nothing.
2002God's free initiative demands man's free response, for God has created man inhis image by conferring on him, along with freedom, the power to know him andlove him. the soul only enters freely into the communion of love. Godimmediately touches and directly moves the heart of man. He has placed in man alonging for truth and goodness that only he can satisfy. the promises of"eternal life" respond, beyond all hope, to this desire:
If at the end of your verygood works . . ., you rested on the seventh day, it was to foretell by thevoice of your book that at the end of our works, which are indeed "verygood" since you have given them to us, we shall also rest in you on thesabbath of eternal life.
2003Grace is first and foremost the gift of the Spirit who justifies and sanctifiesus. But grace also includes the gifts that the Spirit grants us to associate uswith his work, to enable us to collaborate in the salvation of others and inthe growth of the Body of Christ, the Church. There are sacramental graces,gifts proper to the different sacraments. There are furthermore special graces,also called charisms after the Greek term used by St. Paul and meaning"favor," "gratuitous gift," "benefit."Whatever their character - sometimes it is extraordinary, such as the gift ofmiracles or of tongues - charisms are oriented toward sanctifying grace and areintended for the common good of the Church. They are at the service of charitywhich builds up the Church.
2004Among the special graces ought to be mentioned the graces of state thataccompany the exercise of the responsibilities of the Christian life and of theministries within the Church:
Having gifts that differaccording to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportionto our faith; if service, in our serving; he who teaches, in his teaching; hewho exhorts, in his exhortation; he who contributes, in liberality; he whogives aid, with zeal; he who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.
2005Since it belongs to the supernatural order, grace escapes our experience andcannot be known except by faith. We cannot therefore rely on our feelings orour works to conclude that we are justified and saved. However,according to the Lord's words "Thus you will know them by theirfruits" - reflection on God's blessings in our life and in thelives of the saints offers us a guarantee that grace is at work in us and spursus on to an ever greater faith and an attitude of trustful poverty.
A pleasing illustration ofthis attitude is found in the reply of St. Joan of Arc to a question posed as atrap by her ecclesiastical judges: "Asked if she knew that she was inGod's grace, she replied: 'If I am not, may it please God to put me in it; if Iam, may it please God to keep me there.'"