What is Grace?
Grace is nothing else but a certain beginning of glory in us.
St Augustine, when asked said, “What is grace? I know until you ask me; when you ask me, I do not know.”
The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us “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 eternal life. Grace is a participation in the life of God.”
There are two kinds of grace, sanctifying grace and actual grace.
Sanctifying and Actual Grace
Sanctifying Grace
To sanctify something is to set it aside and make it holy. Sanctifying grace is something that sets you aside for the Lord and makes you holy.
Sanctifying grace is an habitual gift (a gift that is permanent), a stable and supernatural disposition that perfects the soul itself to enable it to live with God, to act by His love. It comes with a firm disposition to live and act in keeping with God’s call. (Catechism of the Catholic Church 2000)
Sanctifying grace perfects your soul and is permanent. It’s infused into your soul by the Holy Spirit to heal you of sin and to make you holy. It is first received when you are baptized.
While Baptism gives you new life, Confirmation empowers and strengthens you to live that life. Catholics are charged with being witnesses of Jesus Christ. That’s not an easy task, but God doesn’t leave you to your own strength. Through the grace of the Holy Spirit, he gives you the power to be his witness. Jesus promised the Apostles and you perfection of the grace you received in Baptism when He said: "You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you shall be witnesses for Me. . . . even to the very ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8).
Few souls understand what God would accomplish in them if they were to abandon themselves unreservedly to Him and if they were to allow His grace to mold them accordingly.
Sanctifying Grace in the Sacraments
The Sanctifying Grace of Baptism:
- Is free – you can’t earn it
- Lets you participate in God’s divine life
- Gives you a new life in Christ
- Is supernatural and can’t be understood without faith
- Is infused into your soul by the Holy Spirit
- Makes you an adopted child of God
- Gives you a right to Heaven
- Makes you part of the Church
- Cleanses you of sin
The Sanctifying Grace of Confirmation:
- Roots you more deeply in divine filiation (being a child of God)
- Unites you more firmly to Christ
- Increases and strengthens the gifts of the Holy Spirit in you
- Strengthens your bond with the Church
- Empowers you to speak boldly about the Gospel
- Associates you more closely to the Church’s mission of bearing witness to Christ
- Strengthens you against sin
- Helps you to spread and defend the faith by word and deed
Actual Grace
Actual grace is a supernatural intervention or push from God. It’s specific to the situation and circumstance you are in. Once actual grace is used, it’s gone. If actual grace is ignored and not used, it’s gone; there’s no storing it up. But, because God loves you unconditionally, there’s always some other actual grace on the way. He doesn’t abandon you to your own devices. Actual grace can help you face something you fear, motivate you to confess your sins, prompt you to reach out to someone who is unkind to you, and forgive those who have hurt or wronged you.
Sanctifying grace is more important than actual grace, but once you have sanctifying grace, God gives you actual grace to grow in holiness. God can give you actual grace before you are baptized, but it’s all given to bring you to sanctifying grace. In fact, God gives actual grace to all people, but not all people recognize it and use it to be saved.
How Do I Get Grace?
God never refuses grace to those who honestly ask for it.
Face it, our world is not the world God had in mind when He created it. Sin happened and you can’t overcome evil and get to heaven without help. Every one of us has a need for more and more grace.
If you’re unbaptized or maybe you were baptized as a Catholic but never confirmed or you were baptized into another Christian faith, RCIA is the means to come get the grace. Start here: https://smoy.org/learn/rcia
Once you have sanctifying grace in your soul through Baptism and Confirmation, you get more grace by living a holy life through: