Half-Hours With The Saints and Servants of God/Part 1: 14. On the Sanctifying Grace of God
14.— On the Sanctifying Grace of God.
"Where sin abounded, grace did more abound. That as sin hath reigned to death, so also grace might reign by justice unto life everlasting." — Romans v. 20.
[Cardinal Bellarmin was born at Monte Pulciano in 1542. At the age of eighteen he entered as novice of the Society of Jesus.
Clement VIII. raised him to the rank of cardinal in the year 1601.
Paul V. wishing to retain him near him, the cardinal resigned his archbishopric and devoted himself to the Court of Rome until the year 162 1. He died the same year at the novitiate of the Jesuits, whither he had retired from the commencement of his serious illness.
This learned cardinal has enriched the Church with several works.]
GOD, when He created man, gave him a free-will, and this in so perfect a way that, without constraint, without impairing his liberty, He rules him by His power, frightens him by His threats, and wins him by His blessings.
He has an earnest wish for the salvation of all, but He waits for their consent, for their co-operation. It is to gain them that He warns, that He encourages them, that He leads them on in so wonderful a manner, so as to bring them, with His assistance, to that happiness which is their destiny.
These are the inventions of His wisdom, which the prophet Isaiah says that he will announce to the people (Isaiah xii.)
For those who are reprobates, at one time He warns them with mildness, at another time* He encourages them with kindness, and at another He Corrects them with a paternal love, according to the disposition in which they are, and according to their necessities.
This loving conduct is a visible excess of the charity of our Lord, not only towards the good, but even towards the wicked, in order that they may be converted and become good.
All that contributes to our justification is an effect of His divine grace. It is that which accompanies this great work, which teaches us by exhortation, which encourages us by example, which terrifies us by chastisement, which moves us by miracles, which enlightens our mind, which induces us to follow wise counsels, which improves our understanding, and which inspires us with feelings conformable to the faith which we profess.
Thus our will is subservient to grace, and acts only conjointly with it; so that all these helps which God gives us require our co-operation, in order that we may begin to carry out the good resolutions which we have received from His divine inspirations. So, if we should fall into some sinful habit, we can only impute our fall to our own pusillanimity; and if we advance in virtue, we can only attribute our advancement to grace.
The help of grace is given to all in a thousand ways, be they secret or be they manifest If many reject it, it is always their own fault; if some profit by it, it is the united effect of divine grace and the human will.
[L'Abbe Francois Duneau was born in Rome in April 1752. His father was a follower of the Pretender. The son at first followed the profession of barrister-at-law; but afterwards took orders, and was one of the early members of the Academie Catholique, established in 1800. In 1806 the Grand Duke Ferdinand III. engaged this learned ecclesiastic to educate his son, but he did not long enjoy his deserved promotion, for he died on the 4th of October 1811, aged fifty-nine. His discourses, called "Discorsi Apologetici," consisting of four volumes, are well known and appreciated.]
Some holy Fathers, in speaking of that passage, " And God created man according to His own image and likeness," say that man has two kinds of resemblance to God — the first, signified by the name of image, consists in that man by nature is endowed with an understanding and a will like unto God, capable of knowing Him and of loving Him; the second, expressed by the name of likeness, consists in that man was created in the grace of God, and this gives him a perfect resemblance to His Creator, which he had not in his natural being.
From thence it follows, that since God is the essential and unbegotten beauty, sanctifying grace is the most perfect, the most noble participator of that beauty; the soul which is endowed and adorned with it is infinitely pleasing in the eyes of God. So much so that a great saint, to whom was revealed the wondrous beauty of a soul in a state of grace, used to say that she no longer was astonished that God had willed to shed the last drop of His precious Blood in order to cleanse it, and by His redemption, renew every trace of beauty which sin had entirely effaced.
But if God, who cannot deceive, is charmed with the beauty of a soul in a state of grace, how is it that we are so careless in enriching our souls by the practice of every virtue? Is it not lamentable that we should prefer to please a wretched being — uncomely though we be — rather than try to please the Divine Majesty by that true beauty which He is ever willing to give to those who seek Him?
We daily witness the pains that worldly-minded people take in dressing and decking out their bodies, merely for the sake of pleasing others; and often do we witness that exterior ornaments are sought after and used to hide their natural defects.
We are careful to adorn our bodies which soon will be food for worms, and we neglect that most beautiful ornament of the soul which is the grace of God.
Acknowledge, O Christian, thy dignity, and after having been made participator of the divine nature, do- not return to thy first state by leading a life, which would tarnish thy nobility.
Is it not a gift, exceeding all other gifts, that God should call man His child, and that man should call God his Father?