Question about Grace

[eBeth]

Hello everyone,

I'm having a hard time understanding Grace. Is it the knowledge from God that you have done wrong and need to confess your sins?

Can someone give me an easy explanation or reccomend an easy to understand resource that will explaine it to me?

Thank you in advance for your help.

Elizabeth

 

[Benedicta00]

They’re are basically two kinds of grace. Actual and sanctifying. Actual grace is God's help to do something that otherwise you would not have done. He will give you His grace to save a man from a burning building or to help someone in need, ect or to do the right thin, repent, ect. Sanctifying grace is when you have the divine life of God living in you. After baptism, confession, ect. Communion, when in a state of grace furthers our sanctification.

 

[thereselittleflower]

Oh eBeth . . this is a subject that is very special to me . .

This subject is very deep, and I don't know that we will ever plumb the depths of it.

Grace is not knowledge of God . . we have knowledge of God because of God's Grace . . but that knowledge is not itself Grace . .

Grace has a very nebulous understanding within Protestantism .. if you ask Protestants what Grace actually is, you will not get a satisfying answer. . usually it is looked upon as simply the favor of God . . that He favors you (and doesn't favor aothers by implication) . .

But Grace is far deeper and stronger than mere favor . .. and it is when I understood what it is, that the whole puzzle of Catholicism fell into place and a beautiful whole emerged . .


Grace is the POWER of God, the LIFE of God INFUSED into our soul . .the Power to respond to God, live for God, understand the things of God, to KNOW God . ..

There are 2 types of Grace distinguised in the Catholic Church . .

Actual Grace which is given for specific puropses to empower and help one to respond to God or do something for God . .

The other is Sanctifying Grace . .this Grace allows us to be in a STATE of Grace . . this is LIVING in God's Grace, in His favor and with His empowerment. This is a continuous infussing of His Sanctifying Grace into our souls moment by moment that only sin can interrupt . .

There is a book that I highly recommend . ..

The Glories of Divine Grace by Fr. Matthias J. Scheedben

Here is a write up on it:


http://www.seeds-of-faith.com/Products/Books/TGODG.htm

The Glories of Divine Grace will undoubtedly become one of the two or three most influential Catholic books that you will ever read. For, as the subtitle indicates, it is "A Fervent Exhortation to All to Preserve and to Grow in Sanctifying Grace." Catholic catechisms all teach that with Baptism we become children of God and heirs of Heaven; that we receive thereby Sanctifying Grace and thus have a share in the life of God Himself. However, after learning this, most Catholics think little more about the nature of Sanctifying Grace, what it means and what it does for us.

Far from being an abstract treatise, The Glories of Divine Grace is an impassioned appeal to us all to understand the nature of Sanctifying Grace, to preserve this incredible gift from God, and to grow in it each day for the rest of our lives. Written in a popular, direct style, this book explains how grace works, what are its effects, how to grow in grace, and the union with God that it allows us to achieve. At the same time, the book also enkindles in readers a profound realization about the importance and greatness of Sanctifying Grace and what it really means--or should mean--to us all. For Sanctifying Grace is nothing other than "the life of God Himself," which He shares with us and by which, in a certain sense, He raises us to His level.​

When we part from this world, we shall leave behind us everything we possess, save one: Sanctifying Grace (if we have preserved it!). The author's underlying theme, therefore, is simply this: It behooves us all to safeguard Sanctifying Grace in our souls at all times and to work consciously and daily at growing in it throughout our lives--that thereby our eternity in Heaven will be attained and we shall spend that eternity with God in a far greater degree of happiness than we might otherwise have had if we had not been aware of The Glories of Divine Grace. A famous classic​

Peace in Him!

 

[eBeth]

Thanks you Shelb5 and thereslittleflower,

I will look up the book you reccomended.

Do I have this right? (I'm using my life as an example to understand it better.) Actual Grace is what sent be back to confession and communion after 20 years. In those twenty years I always knew that I woould one day have to confess my sins, but I just wasn't "ready". Then one day, something, made me go back. (Unfortunatly, the something was fear.) Do I have this right?

Then Santifying Grace would be available to me because I was now right with God. Does this make sense?

Forgive me if I'm getting this wrong. I was baptised a Catholic, and made my First Communion, but I didn't get any Catholic training during my life. I'm trying to study myself, but it is hard to do alone. I looked into Adult Education at my church, but it starts in September, so I have towait until next September in order to get into a class.

Thanks
Elizabeth

 

[Rosa Mystica]

...I was baptised a Catholic, and made my First Communion, but I didn't get any Catholic training during my life. I'm trying to study myself, but it is hard to do alone. I looked into Adult Education at my church, but it starts in September, so I have towait until next September in order to get into a class.

Thanks
Elizabeth

Dear eBeth,

I understand where you're coming from with this statement. I myself was ill-catechized, so I don't know everything (I'm really good at being self-taught, however, so I can honestly say I know a lot more than I did a couple of years ago).

If it makes you feel any better, I'm sure you know a lot more about the Faith than many of your forty-something "Catholic" counterparts (notice how I've put "Catholic", as so many people are apathetic to genuine Catholicism these days).

Peace in Him!
Rosa

 

[thereselittleflower]

Yes, basically

Sanctifying Grace is not merely available to you . .it is infused into your soul the moment you made yourself right with God through the Sacrament of Confession . .and continues in you, and is strengthened in you by the reception of the sacrament of the Eucharsit and other acts of faith and charity . . the hearts response to God's Sanctifying Grace, increasing Sanctifying Grace in your life . ..




Peace in Him!

 

[Cathologetics]

Check the catechism too! Good stuff in there.

 

[Debi1967]

Thanks you Shelb5 and thereslittleflower,

I will look up the book you reccomended.

Do I have this right? (I'm using my life as an example to understand it better.) Actual Grace is what sent be back to confession and communion after 20 years. In those twenty years I always knew that I woould one day have to confess my sins, but I just wasn't "ready". Then one day, something, made me go back. (Unfortunatly, the something was fear.) Do I have this right?

Then Santifying Grace would be available to me because I was now right with God. Does this make sense?

Forgive me if I'm getting this wrong. I was baptised a Catholic, and made my First Communion, but I didn't get any Catholic training during my life. I'm trying to study myself, but it is hard to do alone. I looked into Adult Education at my church, but it starts in September, so I have towait until next September in order to get into a class.

Thanks
Elizabeth

Ebeth
hey there and how are you? I look at Grace as something very simple to me. And maybe it will help you. Grace is God's gift to me even though I am unworthy and it infuses me with the power of of His guidance and Love. So that anything I have, or I do is by His Grace and will not my own. I too have had things happen to me in the past that have brought me down paths that were not paved nicely but instead rather roughly. I have learned to look at those things as learning experiences in my life that can be used for the purpose of helping others with the same problems and trying to recover from the same things using the Power and Grace of our Father as their Rock. Because I am living testimony that it can be done with and through Him. I have learned that He uses individuals in this way that He believes can overcome the worst to come to the best and walk in His Light. Sometimes we have to endure great strife in order to achieve the end result but we must understand that we are working for His purpose and not ours. What you have experienced is all in accordance with what is His purpose because just in asking questions you help others that also need the same answers but are to afraid to ask for them as of yet. You are even doing the work of the Lord now. Remember to use all your resources including the phone. LOL
And do not worry about me I think you became so worried about me that you forgot that in letting me help you I was helping myself as well. It put the focus someplace else and was not immersed in my own problems and therefore gave me an apportunity to gain perspective. In order to help ourselves I have always been taught that we must give back what we have already learned to others. This to avoid selfishness.
Love Your Sister
In Christ
Debi

 

[KennySe]

For me another key word to underatnd "grace" is "blessing".

God blesses us with his grace. He makes us new creatures when we are born of water and spirit.

 

[Benedicta00]

Thanks you Shelb5 and thereslittleflower,

I will look up the book you reccomended.

Do I have this right? (I'm using my life as an example to understand it better.) Actual Grace is what sent be back to confession and communion after 20 years. In those twenty years I always knew that I woould one day have to confess my sins, but I just wasn't "ready". Then one day, something, made me go back. (Unfortunatly, the something was fear.) Do I have this right?

Then Santifying Grace would be available to me because I was now right with God. Does this make sense?

Forgive me if I'm getting this wrong. I was baptised a Catholic, and made my First Communion, but I didn't get any Catholic training during my life. I'm trying to study myself, but it is hard to do alone. I looked into Adult Education at my church, but it starts in September, so I have towait until next September in order to get into a class.

Thanks
Elizabeth

I would say that yes it was grace that enabled you to return to the Church but you have cooperate with God’s grace. I would say that grace was always there for you to repent and come home but it wasn’t until you cooperated with it that the grace became operative in your life. Sanctifying grace is when we have no mortal sin on our soul and we are reconciled to Christ through the sacraments of the Church.

Sanctifying grace IS the divine life of God; you can not be saved with out that. When you are in this state of grace it means that God is sharing his own divine life with you. Just as mothers and fathers share their lives with their children, God shares His life with His adoptive children, those who are adoptive through His sacramental grace.

So it is by grace we are truly saved. Grace calls us and we come to believe by cooperating with that grace. Grace frees us from our sin and reconciles us to God through Christ’s blood, and grace calls us back when we fall away and grace cleanses us of our sins once again. So Catholics are very much saved by grace.