SPEAKER_00 0:04

Okay, in the name of the Father, name of the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Come, Holy Spirit, for the hearts of your faithful, and cut on them the fire of your love, send forth your spirit, and they shall be created, and thou shalt renew the face of the earth. Let us pray. God instruct the hearts of the faithful by the light of the Holy Spirit. Grant us in the same spirit to be truly wise and ever to rejoice in this consolation through Christ our Lord. Amen. Our Lady's seat of wisdom. Name of the Father and of the Son of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Alright, so uh returning back to the book, there's a little section on grace. So do a little talk about grace. Then next week, there's a little section on discipleship and evangelization. So I'll talk about that. That should wrap up chapter one. Yay. Okay. I guess you all want a test or a quiz or something. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what happens if you fail. You have to do this again. All right. So let's just want to go back to just because I when I just looking over the the table of contents and looking through the book, it doesn't seem like a whole really uh deeper, at least a treatise on the subject of grace itself. So I figured, well, let's do a little more deeper dive on that, and that maybe will uh give us some more understanding about some things. So let's retrieve, remember, we talked about Adam and Eve. We talked about the fall of Adam and Eve. And of course, let's look at the three effects of sin here. So we have the stain of sin, which is you know alienation from God, corruption of the natural good of man. This is the loss of original justice. So concupiscence, the inclination to sin. More difficult to control the passions, desires for temporal goods, responses to injustice, like when the emotions get all fired up, right? When something goes wrong and we react to it badly, for example. The intellect is darkened. So we we're so we so there's that that unity that we were supposed to have or that Adam and Eve had before the fall, that all that unity of their of their intellect, the will, the passions, all that was in concert, and then with original sin, you have that sort of that that integration is damaged. So that we have more, it's more difficult to do the right. And it's very easy to do the wrong, right? To do uh to commit a sin, which would be to pursue a good, you know, over and against our what is rational or reason. And of course, there's a debt of punishment, right? So an offense against God requires atonement. So one of the, of course, the problem of Adam and Eve is that they have no way of atoning for original sin. There is there's no possibility of that. Because they're finite creatures, you've offended an infinite God, so there's nothing a finite creature can offer an infinite God and atonement for what they've done wrong. So in this state of mankind, in you know, in state of original sin, no one, there's no set, there's no salvation in that. Okay, so Jesus saves us through our human nature. So there's going to be a whole big uh chapter on the our treatment of the Paschal mystery, but we'll just talk, just touch on it briefly, give you a little warm-up so that later on we do the deeper dive. Hopefully that'll you'll have more understanding. Of course, as we proclaimed in the creed, Son of God becomes incarnate, the Virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit. So this is the what you call the you know the you know kinosis, which is the emptying. Kenosis is the Greek word, meaning empty, like it's an emptying. So the Son of God empties himself to become one of us, right? So that so his divinity is united to a human or a human nature. So there's one divine person, the second person of the Holy Trinity, united to a body and a soul. Right? For those who want a real fancy word for it, it's called the hypostatic union. Of course, that'll be, we'll review that again. But what this does is it makes possible, makes possible salvation. Because I said, Adam and Eve did not have the ability to offer an infinite, a sacrifice of infinite value, since they're finite creatures. Now we have a finite creature, right, or a finite, or a finite nature, let me be more precise, a finite nature united to a divine person, the psycho person of the Holy Trinity. So now in Jesus, mankind is capacitated to offer the a sacrifice that is equivalent, right? Because since the Son of God is God, God the Father is God, so therefore, right, we have a so a divine person is offering a sacrifice to another divine person in the unity of the Holy Trinity. Check out that mystery, okay? So you can't figure that out, that's a mystery, right? Don't try to that that's hard, it that's what we're called, remember, a mystery is a truth that cannot be completely comprehended, okay? So Jesus offers himself on the altar of the cross for the for the all for the remission of all sin. Of course, we know that through what he established at the Last Supper, the words of the Last Supper, which we use at Mass. So this opens the possibility of man becoming in union with God. Because the sin from Adam to the the way up to the end of time, all the sin that man has committed, will commit is atoned in Jesus Christ. So the course the Paschal Mysteries, chapter six of the textbook. For those of you who are really eager, right, and want to go read ahead, you can do that, you know. I'm not stopping you. It's like, hey Father, I read chapter six. Can I get a cookie? Yeah, sure. Have a coffee. Okay. Right? Yeah, so I know some of the eager beavers around, right? So, of course, the Pentecost, a promised Holy Spirit's betowed upon the church, Acts chapter 2. Of course, John, it is the fulfillment of what Jesus promises the apostles before the Passion in John 14. And we have the what Jesus says, the apostles, now we'll ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to be with you always, a spirit of truth, which the world cannot accept because it neither sees nor knows it. But you know it because it remains with you and will be in you. So what Jesus is saying to them is that something different is happening. Back in Exodus, when the the the covenant was was you know given to the people of Israel through Moses, right? There was no intrinsic sort of transformation of the person, right? We had the blood that was sprinkled on the altar, and the blood that was sprinkled on the people, this is the blood of the covenant. But there's nothing like this outpouring of the spirit. Remember that there was the burning bush, but only Moses got to experience, got to see that. So there's this is a step in the process. So we're seeing that there's something new that's happening where now God is giving the Holy Spirit, right? God the Father is giving the gift of the Spirit to the people to the church. This is new. This is a new thing. Okay. So we're looking at the transforming power of the Holy Spirit. So the Holy Spirit is given to the apostles in the upper room. So remember that in chapter 1, we read that Mary is in the upper room with the apostles. So this is after the ascension. They've gathered in prayer in the upper room. And there every day for these nine days, right? This is the first novena. This is where we get the word, where the devotion from novenas comes from, for the fact that the that our lady and the apostles were praying in the upper room for those nine days. And the Holy Spirit descends upon the apostles as tongues of fire. Now it's interesting, Pentecost is the is the feast of the giving of the Mosaic law. So the incident I just talked about, where the there's the people of Israel at the foot of Mount Sinai, right? This is the feast day on the Jewish calendar, right? Because it's 50 days after the Passover. And so now the new law of the Spirit is now given to the new covenant, right? The new law of the Spirit. So we see the apostles begin to speak in foreign languages. So there's something different happening here where the apostles are being something in them has changed. Something in them has changed. That then they're capacitated to speak languages that they never studied before. Remember, these are men who are fishermen. So they're giving infused knowledge. Right? That's a work of the Holy Spirit. We see that Peter is the first to step up to preach to the people, which reflects, of course, his office as the first pope. We have 3,000 persons baptized that day. So there is a new, something new is happening. Remember that in Matthew's Gospel, it says, Go forth, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. Right? That's in Matthew chapter 28, one of the last, it's the last, part of the last words that are recorded by Matthew in the Gospel. So that's that's new. So in John's Gospel, we'll read that Jesus went about baptizing. So if you want a little sidebar thing, this is not, I don't know if anybody's written about this, but my theory is that, you know, if we look at the series of sacraments in the church, that we have baptism, of course, then you know, communion, confirmation, right, this sort of thing. That the apostles were already baptized, so that they could be, then it makes sense that they were already, then when they when Jesus ordains them on the the on when he institutes the Eucharist on the evening of the Last Supper, so that they already had, right, they already had the gift of baptism before, right, they received the gift of ordination. So I think that actually makes sense. So then we're talking about what happens at Pentecost, is that you know that they're they're enlivened, right? Right, that they that the gifts of the Spirit are then kind of unfolding for them. Well, that's just a reflection. I don't I don't know if there's any any scriptural scholar who's talked talks about that because it is a little, I don't know, I find it a little interesting about this this seek the sequence of how how the apostles receive the gift of holy orders and what they so they rush because when Jesus says, right, in the last, he says, you know what, because it remains with you, it means the Holy Spirit's already with them and will be in you. So we see that there must have been something happened before, and see Pentecost and what happens after the Paschal mystery, uh, or is part of the Paschal mystery, actually. Okay. So then after we see at the end of chapter 2 that as soon as Pentecost happens, that people are baptized, then the sacramental life of the church begins. They began, they devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles and the communal life to the breaking of the bread and to the prayers. So the saying the breaking of the bread, that is early scripture language for the mass. So we see right away, we start seeing a sacramental life of the church. Baptism, we see, and the celebration of Mass. So let's start digging into grace. So this is Romans, this is Saint Paul. Now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law. So righteousness, righteousness means holiness, apart from the Mosaic law. Though testify to by the law and the prophets, he's anticipated by the law, the Mosaic law, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. There is no distinction. All have sinned and are deprived of the glory of God. They are justified freely by his grace, through the redemption in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as an expiation through faith by his blood, to prove his righteousness because of the forgiveness of sins previously committed through the forbearance of God, to prove his righteousness in the present time, he might be righteous and justify the one who has faith in Jesus. So what we're seeing is that there is justification, right? A person that can be justified by grace. And we're going to get into what that means, right? So Romans 5, the gift or the grace is not like the transgression, for that by that one person's transgression, many died. How much more did the grace of God and the gracious gift of the one person, Jesus Christ, overflow for the many? And the gift is not like the result of the one person sinning, for after one sin there was judgment that brought condemnation. So, meaning that when the Mosaic law came, so we get the Ten Commandments, we get all that, right, the people had to follow this law, but it was, in a sense, a means of pointing out to them how they're incapable of fulfilling God's will.

unknown 13:54

Right?

SPEAKER_00 13:54

Because the story of the history of Israel, Israel was called to be a light to the nations. We get a brief glimpse of that with Solomon when the Queen of Sheba comes from the south. So the idea is that Israel in its vocation should have been a light to the nations, right? Because they have this one God, they have one place of worship, right? They have this unique law of which they live by, which is different from what everyone else is doing. All the other people of surrounding Israel are fallen gods, and they're and they're committing all kinds of atrocities in the name of their religion. So we have Israel is supposed to be the slight to the nations. But we see what happens after that height of Solomon, that that then begins to fall apart gradually. Because what's going on is that we see that the that there's a lack of capacity in a sense, that there's a lack of interior capacity to truly follow the law. That's what St. Paul is talking about, reflecting upon. For after once and there was judgment brought condemnation, but the gift, after many transgressions, brought acquittal. So we're talking about paschal mystery. For if by the transgression of one person death came to reign through that one, that is Adam, how much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the gift of justification come to reign in life through the one person, Jesus Christ. So we see that Jesus, atoning for all sin, then gives us a gift. The gift that we are able to obtain, right? And of course, we'll talk about how that is obtained. So let's we're gonna go through some of what the catechism talks about. So 1996 is the paragraph. Our justification comes from the grace of God. You know, justification meaning that we are now worthy in the sight of God. That we have been, we have, you know, so we'll we'll talk more about that. Grace is favor, free, undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of God, adoptive sons, partakers of divine nature and eternal life. And in the next paragraph, grace is a participation in the life of God. As a simple definition. That through the merits of the passion, death, and resurrection of Christ, that God allow, you know, gives us a participation in his life. And that's different than what the Israelites received. Of course, they received the law, right? Now what receiving the law of the Spirit is now we re not only do we have the new, we have a new law of the Spirit. So not only can we, of course, now all the sacrificial stuff of the old covenant falls away because there's one sacrifice for sin. But what's different is that now we have the interior ability to live out the Ten Commandments, to live out the beatitudes. Right? To actually, you know, live live a life that is an imitation of the person which remained in the image and likeness of. Okay. So continuing, it introduces us into the intimacy of Trinitarian life by baptism. The Christian participates in the grace of Christ, the head of his body. As an adopted son, he can henceforth create God Father in union with the only Son. He receives the life of the Spirit, who breathes charity to him, and who forms the church. So that leads us to the discussion of, okay, sanctifying grace. Now, this is something everybody, if you remember your Baltimore Catechism, which you probably don't, right? No, but the foundation of the Christian life is baptism.

unknown 18:03

Right?

SPEAKER_00 18:03

The sacrament of baptism, which we will go into more deeper detail about, right? So the Holy Spirit is through conveyed by the water of baptism into the soul of the person to be baptized. The priest or the deacon or even bishop says it was, I baptize you, name of the Father and of the Son, of the Holy Spirit. That's the form and matter of the sacraments. So now what happens? We see that now the person to be baptized, right, they're cleansed of original sin. They are marked for Christ, and the Holy Spirit remains in the soul of the person, so that now they are given the status as an adopted child of God. That's a big and that's the basis for which, of course, the church. We're entering into the new covenant community, the church, by baptism. So that happens not simply, we don't just get like a uh like an uh ID card, right? Here I got my membership card. I went and wrote, I got, I went, I got, you know, the three box tops and the Cheerios and mailed it in. Got a little club card, you know, kind of thing. You know, now this is because it's now it's a relationship that now we enter into with God because we're inserted into the life of the Trinity, because the Holy Spirit has come into us. The love that is the divine person who is the love that is shared between the Father and the Son. Of course, Romans 8, I have quoted here, for those who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you receive a spirit of adoption, though through which we cry Abba, Father. The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, if children then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if only we suffer with him, so we may be glorified with him. So eternal life is sort of implanted into us through baptism. So we call that grace a baptism what? Sanctifying grace. So it's the basis of the Christian life. You can't be a true Christian unless you're baptized, because then the power of the Holy Spirit is now working in and through you and inhabits you. And it's a, of course, remember it's a one-time sacrament. There's no there's no going back. You know, we so we'll talk later about you know losing your state of grace at some other point. Now let's talk about what prevenient grace is, it's the grace that comes before. Catechism 2001. The preparation of man for the reception of grace is already a work of grace. So there's two, of course, we know we have infant baptism, in which the parents bring the child to the baptismal font. So the child has no choice in that. But it has a grace, because why? The greatest gift you can give to your child is what? Eternal life. So it's not as if you're doing something wrong by having your child baptized. It's it's, you know, parents are given, have given through the given and cooperate with God to give the gift of new life, and now they're giving the child the gift of everlasting life. What's what you know what's isn't that a great birthday present, right? And give your child eternal life. So why that's infant baptism is is not a problem. Also, because we know that even those who have converted as later on, either as adults or maybe as a teenager, that God has worked in them already to bring them to conversion. And that's a totally free gift, right? The gift of conversion is something that doesn't come from us, right? Even if you talk to people who've been a Catholic all their life and and they may have fallen away, but then they had like a conversion experience, that is an un that's an unmerited gift of grace. God has worked in this person's life in some A way that they've led them to this place of conversion. So we call that so it's prevenient grace, which means the grace that comes before. Venire in Latin means to come, right? So it's the grace that comes before. So it's the grace that's leading the people, for example, who are in the RCIA class, for example, or OCIA. Sorry, yeah, that's a new thing now. Order of Christian initiation for adults. That grace, the prevenient grace is which bringing them to conversion, right? That has can the Holy Spirit has convinced the person that the Catholic Church is the true Church of Christ. And that they want to have this personal relationship with Jesus in the context of the church, knowing that this is the true church established by Jesus Christ. So that and also we could talk about prevenient grace in terms of those who are in a state of mortal sin and are living a life of sin. And you know, when they commit a sin, that prevenient grace is what moves them to go to confession, moves them to get their sins forgiven in that context. Okay. So if we're seeing, like and if if when we're thinking about what was happening when Peter was preaching in Acts chapter 2, she was preaching the word. Holy Spirit came upon the apostles. Peter steps up, preach the word. He's got this big crowd in front of him from all kinds of different countries that have come to Jerusalem to celebrate this feast day of the giving of the law. They hearts removed. It says they were cut to the heart. What's that? That's prevenient grace working in the hearts of those people that led them to be baptized. So we see the Spirit comes, the apostles, they were enlivened. The word is spoken, the word of God, right? The word of God is active in the persons that are hearing this, and then that grace God has given them to desire baptism comes, and then they're baptized. We see that's how has prevenient grace at work in the scripture. Yeah.

unknown 23:57

Is prevenient grace the title? Actual grace?

SPEAKER_00 24:00

Yes, I would say so. No, yeah. Like she's ahead of me. She's getting ahead. No, you're not. You don't have to be sorry for that. Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. Um, anyway. So now you don't have to be, you know, you don't have to be sorry for that. No. Yeah, it is a form of actual grace. In fact, that's what this paragraph is saying here. So Saint Augustine has this is also quoted in the catechism. Um, indeed, we also work, we were only collaborating with God who works, for his mercy has gone before us. That is, because you know Augustine's story, right? Right? We know that it's gone before us that we may be healed, and follows us to that once healed we may be given life. Grace of baptism. It goes before us so we be called, and follows us that we may be glorified. It goes before us that we may live devoutly, and follows us so we always live with God, for without him we can do nothing. And that's um the denatura et gratia, that's of nature and grace. So we see this, so Augustine, of course, right, Mother Monica pouring forth her prayers for her son, uh, and he eventually comes to contact with St. Ambrose, and eventually he makes his way into the church, right? So we see all these things happening. Augustine is experiencing God's mercy, he's guiding his life, putting him in situations that he's hot, you know, we see God working in his history to put him, to bring him to this place where then he will become a Catholic. When you really think of that story, it's really amazing. He wanted to be a famous uh teacher of rhetoric, which was a big deal back then. So if you could, because you though the wealthy families of Rome would want you to teach them rhetoric, right? How to speak, okay? So he wanted to be one of those persons, basically sponsored by a wealthy family, live and be able to teach and live in luxury, basically live in McLean, Virginia, okay? I used to live there, so I know. I was living above my station when I lived in McLean, Virginia. And the people and the people the vicar for clergy and the vic and the bishop know that. So that's another thing. But anyway. So now we get into actual grace. Yay! All right. So we so let's let's so oh question, yeah. Well, see, pre see, we you're not born with, you know, you're born out of a state of you're born out of you're born out of a state of original sin, correct? So I can't say you're born with prevenient grace. That would because it's that's an action that would come from the outside or later on, I would say. Because in order for grace to work, right, we're talking about having probably there's I'm sure there are graces that happen, but for a child, I imagine there would be those graces we put sort of external coming from the parents to the child, right? For example, right? The parents desiring baptism for the child, that's sort of a that's sort of an exterior form of prevenient grace in a sense, or the parents are actually maybe in the state of grace desiring baptism for the child, right? So I would say that that would be that for a for a for a newborn, that would be sort of an external kind of thing. Okay? So then when the when the child reaches the age of reason, and let's say that baptism hasn't occurred, and let's say that as a child's growing up, they got neighbors who are devout Catholics, and they he plays with the neighbor's kids in the backyard. It's like, I'm gonna go to church with them. That's that's kind of prevenient. Is that make sense? Okay. Okay, yep. I'm sorry, I got the look. We need to close. Could someone close that door over there? Because it's making a the boiler's making noise. I was like, this room isn't warm enough for you people, so I'm gonna work. Okay. Yeah, go ahead, sorry.

unknown 28:00

So there is a truth that a lot of people have no access to grace.

SPEAKER_00 28:07

Well, the word has to be preached. That's the mode of evangelization. That's what we'll talk about next week. Yeah, is that cool? It all connects together, huh? Isn't that cool? Somebody did something good when they wrote the book, right? Okay. Does that make sense? Does that help? Okay. All right, so let's so when we when we're actual grace, we we tend to think of like something that's actual, something that's more real. So remember, sanctifying grace is the the uh the analogy I like to use is uh just this this laptop, right? If I shut this laptop down, it doesn't do anything. It's just a bunch of it's plastic and circuits and stuff, just sits there inert. Once I plug it into the wall, turn it on, electricity flows through it. Now I can do things like have a PowerPoint presentation. And which, you know, I know there's death by PowerPoint. This is gonna be life by PowerPoint, because I'm talking, you know. All right, I understand the military they're horrible at this thing. Apparently, death by PowerPoint, like the words are like really small, no one knows how to use it, apparently. I don't know if that's a skill they develop as a raising as they're training officers in the academy. I don't know. Here's how we can like help our do death by PowerPoint for your for your uh your your uh people you're in charge of. Okay. So actual grace is grace of the act. So what happens is that, okay, God, so you're you're you're enlivened with sanctifying grace. So the electricity is is flowing through you, through this, like grace is flowing through the soul. So then you are God will move you in accordance with your will, according to human freedom. That's the thing. God doesn't move you over and against your freedom, okay? So he doesn't move you like a robot to command a robot to do something, because all of a sudden you feel compelled to do something, like, uh, I have to do this really good thing, I'll be right back. I don't know why. You know? That doesn't, it's not like you don't know why. It's that God moves you in accordance with freedom because remember, his nature is other than ours, above our nature, transcendent of our being. So there's that, so he can move us in accordance with our freedom to do something that is good. So actual grace is vertical God's intervention, so prevenient grace is a form of actual grace. God is inspiring that person, enlightening the intellect for that person to become a Catholic. Or when we already have sanctifying grace, we have the principle of the Holy Spirit, we have the Holy Spirit within us, and the principle of charity, right? The love, because we have the virtues, theological virtues of faith, open, charity that are infused in our soul through baptism. So then we could, we, then God can move us to do something good. So for example, um, you know, we come to Mass on Sunday and the announcement comes, United Community Collection is coming up next week. You know, please gather your items. And you hear that, and you're like, you know what? I'm gonna do something. I'm gonna go to the store and I'm gonna buy, you know, some Campbell soup or some, you know, some chef boyardi or some cereal, I'm gonna put it in a bag and I'm gonna drop it off.

unknown 31:12

Right?

SPEAKER_00 31:12

That's that's that's a movement of grace. It's a movement of the Holy Spirit. You heard, you know, you were there is a word that was given to you that, hey, you know, there's an opportunity to do something good, then I'm gonna go do that. And I carry it out. I go to the store and I buy these things, and I do this without I'm not looking for any attention, not going, hey everybody, I'm gonna do this thing, you know, okay. Aren't I good? Okay, you know. And um you go through, and you go through with it, and there's no, you know, there's no recompense of the self. There's no other than, you know, I mean, there might be some satisfaction for doing a good thing, but it's not like there was any any other motives or ulterior motives or anything like this. It was you did it out of love. That's an actual grace working in and through you. And what that does is that of course when we do that, that disposes us to do more good things. Because then we could acquire, right, a habit or virtue, right? The idea that now we are exercising that that virtue of charity, and that can actually grow within us. So, of course, we know there's sacramental graces. We're gonna have a whole thing on all the sacraments, and I'm not gonna go through each sacrament, all the different graces associated with it, but as we know that you know, a sacrament is a sign instituted by Christ to give grace. Classic Baltimore catechism definition. I love how all these books try to read different terms of this thing. Well, you just give the Baltimore Catechism language. It's so simple, it's the same. Everyone's like ashamed of the Baltimore Catechism. I'm not, okay? Because it was the catechism composed by the bishops in the Third Council of Baltimore in the late 19th century. And it's a it's a really easy way of, you know, for children and even for adults to understand to know the basics of the faith, just to know the basics, right? So those who each sacrament has its own way in which we participate in the divine life. Because we just talked about baptism, of course. Many of you have just attended Holy Mass, right? The grace of receiving the Eucharist is the grace of union with Christ. So there's different graces, and we'll we'll get into that, of course, in the later chapters. But don't want to, I don't want to spoil all that stuff because we don't have time either. So, of course, there's charisms. You might remember this from your you know confirmation class or whenever you had confirmation prep, grace is includes the gift that the Spirit grants associated with his work. So we're given special gifts and talents to build up the kingdom of God. So, you know, for example, if you know someone has a gift of administration, right, that could that's a charism or gift. Someone has the gift of preaching or uh someone gifts of healing, right? So we think about that we it would be really boring as a church if everybody got the same gifts. It'd be really boring. Because it'll be all the same. No, no, did do we do we have these complementary gifts so that each person contributing their part, right? So one person's, you know, one person's gift makes up for another person's lack. So what that does, that brings people together. That brings people together. When you think about that, diversity of charisms, right? We become the de the Holy Spirit through the Holy Spirit, we become closer together as a church. Why? Because we have to rely on one another. So when we think about there's various kinds of charisms, you know, like for example, you know, I think of the people who, there's a few people in our church who like lifelong volunteers and they're still going in their 80s, 70s and 80s, and they're continuing to volunteer for the church. That's kind of that's there's a charism that's going on in that person. You know, I know a family that has a great love for service to the poor. You know, they they go to the wife goes to Christ's house, a husband's in St. Vincent the Paul Society. That's like a charism that they somehow has become a family, like a charism of their marriage, this gift of love for the for the for the you know the poor. That that's a charism that they both share together and they make as a gift to the church. Okay, so so that so that that's the that's the to the so the Holy Spirit when we baptize, confirm, right, the idea that we're that that we're given special gifts you know for the building up of the church. Now, getting into the concept of merits. Now, one of the things I've been listening to lately has is a podcast, a guy I know from who um he has an EWTN radio show named Matt Swain. He has a podcast with the Coming Home Network. And he was they were taught there's these are former Protestant pastors that have become Catholic. He was a actually worked at a Christian store, was in like a Christian punk band. I don't know if you have one of those. But can't play that music, sorry. It's too darn loud. But so, but then one of the questions they're going over is that they're, you know, they a lot of the things they talk about is, you know, one of the things are evangelical brothers and sisters, especially in sort of that Lutheran tree of Protestantism, is the idea of that somehow we can't do anything to merit salvation. But what Luther misunderstood, now if you understand Hillister's personal history, you understand why he went in this direction. Because he saw himself as so is so sinful and depraved, and he has his family background was not great, that he couldn't see his way to how how could he be how could he be doing venial sin and still be saved? He couldn't resolve it. So he went to this passage, St. Paul, that only through faith can one be justified, and went off the rails after that. And he's sort of ignoring other scripture passages that talk about, okay, well, like for example, in the whole Old Testament, the pattern is you call by God, you're obedient, and then you get the blessing. And then Luther says, no, you you just as soon as you're as soon as you make your profession of faith in God, you're justified, and you're just sort of snow on the dunghill. That's not what we believe as Catholics. We're talking about the transformation of the human person, right? That the baptism is the foundation for transformation. Right? That the process of our journey in the Catholic life is to be transformed and become more conformed to Christ. So we become more of who we're supposed to be. So as the Holy Spirit works in us and we do we cooperate with grace, for example, in those actual graces. So, for example, when you made that trip to the store to go to make that uh that uh donation to the United Community, right, that's and that's that actual grace working. And then you get merit for that, a reward for doing what is right. So the the Holy Spirit in moving you, according with your freedom, not against your will, to do something that is good, also you get a reward for that. We call that merit. Right? So, as is we see in the catechism, since the initiative belongs to God, the order of grace, no one can merit the initial grace of forgiveness and justification, which we talked about at the beginning of conversion. Moved by the Holy Spirit and by charity, we can then merit for ourselves and for others the graces needed for our sanctification. So there's justification, in which we are made right with God through baptism, and then there's sanctification, the process in which we overcome our vices and improve in our virtues so that through the work of grace, the Holy Spirit, that we become more like Christ. And we're being prepared for the gift of eternal life. So we can merit, and also we can merit for others too. So when we pray for other people, right? We help other people, okay? For the increase of grace and charity for the attainment of eternal life. So when it says, so God's influence, so that you know there can be an increase of sanctifying grace in our soul that God's influence in our life is expanding, right, in influence over our intellect, our will, and our passions. So there's condigned merit. This is based on St. Thomas Aquinas in the Summa Theologiae. It's a reward due to its source, God Himself. So all graces, sorry, all actual graces, right, the source of which is God. So it is worthy that God is, you know, rewarding something that comes from himself, right? Then there's congruous or um merit, which is it's a reward due with our cooperation with it. So we're inspired by the Holy Spirit, we're given that actual grace, and we go through with it. So we're getting we're it's merit based on the fact that we exercise our intellect and our will. The grace of final perseverance is the the the merit of eternal life is unmerited. Why? Because everything we have done, the source has been God Himself. So it's as a so it's not that we we save ourselves, right? So this kind of this so this is why we can say that we and it's not um stealing glory from God, everything comes from God, all our good does come from God, but it's the idea that that we are cooperating with his grace, and of course, if everything that we do we are doing is in its state of grace, and we're and we're doing these good things, and of course, that brings us to eternal life, right? And so that grace is is of course it's on merit because everything is coming from God. Okay? So sanctification, like I said, work of becoming holy, is found the basis of sanctifying grace, in which the Christian cooperative charisma natural grace has been given, conforms the soul of Christ. Continual practice of the faith unites the soul of Christ through grace, which leads to salvation of the individual Christians. So that's why we we continuously go to confession, why we continuously attend Mass on Sunday, why we pray, why we do works of charity, right? What we're doing is we then are enlivening the gifts that God has given us because his grace is working in us, and that helps us to you know progress in that journey towards eternal life. Okay. So, of course, that's next week. Alright, so I got a few few minutes here. Uh quest more questions from everybody. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 41:29

I thought of that as a continual process as well.

SPEAKER_00 41:35

This is where we get, yeah, this is this is where because when you when you're dealing with the uh once saved, always saved folks, you're gonna have problems with terms, right? What things mean. So they might talk about the grace of being saved. So that's why um anybody see um Oh Brother or Art Thou? That movie in 2000, Cohen Brothers? Have you seen that movie? Delmar been saved, right? I love that. I love that because it means because the idea is that so once you're once you're baptized, it's like, well, you're done. Like you're you're on the way to heaven. It's like no matter what you do now, you're you can't do anything to earn your salvation, which means that simply your life of going to church on Sunday and the things you do that are good, they're sort of signs, but not, they're not, it's not like God is working in and through you. It's it it's it's interesting. What I heard on the on the podcast was um from Matt Swain, and uh it's called the On the Journey with Matt Ken and Kenny, if you want to know the podcast. Is it everyone lives as if they're that like what we teach as Catholics is true, but the theology is is different, right? So justification in our terms is the great sanctifying grace that the Holy Spirit's dwelling within you, which makes you justified in the sight of God, right? You're eligible for salvation. Now, sanctification builds on justification to continually conform you to Christ. So once you're baptized, yes, you're justified, right? So, for example, in a in an adult, this would make sense when we think about an adult becoming baptized. So, yes, all their all their all that origin, so if they're being an adult being baptized, all the original sin gets wiped away. We know all the but the person is still gonna have habit, habitual things they need to overcome.

unknown 43:21

Right?

SPEAKER_00 43:22

They're kind of come, they're gonna come out of the baptisms justified by God, but then we still like have, like, for example, you know, a vice that they still need to overcome. So they need that's that so then now they're on the journey of overcoming that vice after baptism. You see what I'm saying? Does that make sense? It's that it doesn't that that inclination to that sin has gone away. Because concupiscence, see the thing is concupiscence remains in the soul after baptism, it's an inclination to sin. Grace helps us overcome the inclination. See what you see so we can overcome the inclination to sin through the work of grace. See the power of So that that makes sense. Any other questions? Okay? Yeah. You're not sorry, it's okay.

SPEAKER_02 44:36

God isn't working on like predestination. We have to wait until God ends.

SPEAKER_00 44:42

Well, it's just because God's working through the other people. So like the person on the desert island doesn't hear the word of God, right? May have a desire for salvation of some sort, or comes to some kind of if like a person, let's say, grew up there and didn't have any access to anything. Like some. So um, but what I'm saying is, you know, when we're talking what I because we were talking about a child being born, right? That the age of reason is when, okay, they can make start making decisions, correct? So that that prevenient grace, of course, is un of course is something it's completely gratuitous, but at some point they're going to hear something about God that might interest them and ask more questions about that. Then we see that at that point that that that's prevenient grace working in the soul of that person, right? The desire for God or the desire for salvation or some kind of desire for the transcendent would say that could be a work of prevenient grace. Does that help at all? Am I putting more mud in the situation? I guess. Sorry.

unknown 45:40

It helps. I guess I just I have trouble reconciling the idea that convenient grace isn't always available to a person who knows about God and who is.

SPEAKER_00 45:52

Well, if you're saying someone already knows about God, yeah, they're already the intellect and the will are active and they're therefore convenient grace is just a fact that they were in some ways both. Right. That's that's part of what that would be a prevenient grace, right? But somehow there's a searching, a desire, right? So that's filled into us, right anyway, that we are being like, Yeah, or maybe yeah, because there's always I think there's the disman has already had a desire for the transcendent. The problem is what direction does that go? And it you know, that's that's a whole other that's a that's another 30-minute talk. You know, but anyway, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:31

So does rece, how does that relate into natural law?

SPEAKER_00 46:36

Does that be in willing that everything went whether it's not or not you've heard uh, yeah, so the next so if someone comes to know the depend how they come to how do they come to know the natural law would be interesting. Like how because is that is that is that through, for example, um because one of the things, at least being in our culture, is we're very much influenced by Christianity. So there's a lot of up, there's a lot, there's a lot there, right? Someone or there could be a grace of someone coming to know the natural law even though they haven't heard it potentially, or they have an experience of it, maybe they experience a form of guilt for doing something wrong and come to an understanding, well that doesn't that doesn't seem right. That could be the work of prevention grace, okay? Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:23

Yeah, isn't it kind of the uh the fact that the natural law would be in the very word nature itself, it's just part of our nature to understand it.

SPEAKER_00 47:31

Yeah, although you have to come, I'm I'm sure that you know if you didn't have any understanding of if if nothing was taught to you, I'm sure it would be more difficult to conceive the natural law because our intellect is, you know, because we could c our consciences can be educated, right? So it's not as if um everything is um every you know what I'm saying, like not everything comes as natural as we think it does. You know what I'm saying? So um so yeah, it's a it's a difficult, it's a difficult concept, I think, because it's it's one of those things where remember, you know, the Lord is doing this freely, right? And there's probably graces people get and don't even realize it, you know. Um so okay. So uh I gotta wrap up because I know communion is probably gonna happen in about 15 minutes, and you know, so um, by the way, if you're uh St. Louis School parrot and you're here for the credit due for the conference of the first communion class. There's a little I have a little note card here. If you could just put your name on it. This is for the first Holy Communion folks. Um, because I need to make sure that you get credit for being here. Yeah, yeah. Sorry, you were just questioning um who attracts we get credit for last month following retroactively give you credit for last month? Oh, okay. Well just you just put your put the dates down that you were here. Guess we won't see you next week, then? Is that right? I'm just kidding. Because you fulfilled your two. I think it's one per semester, I think, is what it is. Okay. Extra credit for you? Okay. I mean, does that mean your kid gets communion a month early? I don't know. So, you know. So, all right. Well, let's pray, name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Just remember the faithful departed, eternal rest granted to them, O Lord. May perpetual light shine upon them, may they rest in peace. May the souls of the faithful departed, the mercy of God rest in peace. Amen. Name of the Father and of the Son of the Holy Spirit, amen. Of course, anybody wants to say hello and ask me a further question because I know you guys got places to go, people to see you, all that good stuff. So thanks, Father.