THE GRACE OF GOD

A SERMON FOR THE 18TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Deo Gratias!  It’s a Latin expression that probably you’re already familiar with.  We say it at the end of Mass:  Ite, Missa est.  Deo gratias.  “The Mass is complete.  Thanks be to God.”  We give thanks to God, not, obviously, because the Mass is now over and we can go and have breakfast.  But because another Mass has been offered to God and is now complete, another Holy Sacrifice which continues the sacrifice of Christ on Calvary, and is the source of all graces.  We give thanks for those graces, the most important gift we can receive from God.  Indeed the Latin word for grace is gratia, the same as the Latin word for “thanks.”

In this morning’s Epistle, St. Paul gives thanks for all the graces that God sends to all of you, to all of us, every day.  He explains the reason why we too should be thankful for them.  He says that God sends these graces so that we may be “in every thing enriched by him.”  For without these graces we would be powerless to perform any good deed, pronounce any good utterance, or think any good thought.  We would be incapable of being “good!”  We can’t be good if we don’t have the grace from God, if we’re not in the state of sanctifying grace.

You may instantly object to this, and say that non-Catholics, even pagans and atheists are capable of many good thoughts, words, and deeds.  Surely, you may think non-Catholics can be “good” people.  After all, they do many good things, they believe that Christ is the Son of God, our Savior, a lot of them speak well, and I’m sure they think good thoughts.  So why would I be so presumptuous as to say they are not good?  Well, it all depends on what you mean by “good.”  There is a distinction to be made between natural goodness and supernatural goodness. 

Without what St. Paul calls “the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ”, both non-Catholics, and Catholics who are in the state of mortal sin, are incapable of doing anything supernaturally good.  Their thoughts, words and deeds may be good and pleasing to God on the natural level.  They may even elicit from God an outpouring of actual grace to inspire them to go to confession, repent their sins, or convert from their heresy.  But their acts can never amount to being meritorious.  Without supernatural grace in their soul, they cannot merit an increase in supernatural, sanctifying grace.  In other words, their natural good deeds cannot buy them a place in heaven.

Without sanctifying grace, we may still be kind to our neighbor and treat him with natural charity and generosity.  But without grace, this charity is truly only natural charity, not the kind that merits supernatural grace and saves our souls.  We can have all the good thoughts in the world, we can have the golden speech that gladdens the hearts of men.  As St. Paul says elsewhere, we can have “the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge;” and we can have “all faith, so that we could remove mountains, and have not charity, we are nothing.  This supernatural virtue of charity can only exist in our souls if we are in the state of sanctifying grace..

Once we commit a mortal sin, our good actions become merely natural.  They are still good, but they are not meritorious.  This is why it is so important to go to confession as soon as we can, if we ever have the misfortune of falling into grave sin, mortal sin.  The word “mortal” comes from the Latin word mors which means “death”.  When we commit a mortal sin, our soul dies.  We human beings are referred to as “mortals” because we eventually all die.  Our bodies are mortal, but our soul has the potential to be immortal.  If we remain in the state of sanctifying grace, our souls will never die.  They will have eternal life.

We’re all born with original sin.  The innocent little baby is born not a hundred percent innocent.  There is already a stain on his soul which will prevent him from doing anything supernaturally good.  The sacrament of Baptism washes away that stain and introduces supernatural grace into the baby’s soul, so that when he reaches the age of reason, he can freely choose to love God and his neighbor a hundred percent.  We see, then, how important the Sacrament of Baptism is.  Without this washing away of original sin, that baby will never have a soul that can merit eternal life.

This is why the Church teaches that there is no salvation outside the Church.  We flinch, perhaps, when we hear those words.  We think of our friends who are not Catholic, who are “good people”, who, surely deserve to go to heaven when they die.  But if we believe that only those who die in the state of sanctifying grace are “saved”, then we must also worry about those who are not in the state of grace.  Those, first of all, who are not baptized, like Mormons, Jews, Muslims, or the children of parents who just didn’t bother to have them baptized.  And then those Catholics and validly baptized Protestants who lead a life in contradiction with the true faith revealed by God, or who have fallen into mortal sin and never go to confession.  How can we believe they are on the path to heaven?

We shouldn’t feel guilty when we say that there is no salvation outside the Church.  We’re certainly not saying we’re better than anybody else, for there, but for the grace of God, go I.  All we’re saying is what our blessed Lord already said: “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”  What else did he say?  “I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.”  We must be branches of the vine, members of Christ’s Mystical Body, members of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church he founded.  And if not?  “If a man abide not in me,” our Lord continued, “he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.”  If we’re not branches of that vine, we cease to live supernaturally.  Once we’re cut off from the vine, we’re no longer capable of supernatural life, of being good.  We’re good for nothing except to be burned.  And burned we should certainly be.  It’s a sobering thought, and our reaction to it, if we love our neighbor as ourselves, should be to convert to the true Church anyone who is outside it.  Or if they’re members who have fallen away, to bring them back through our prayers, our good example, our persistence.  

We certainly don’t have the right to stand like the Pharisee in the temple, thanking God that “I am not like other men.”  “Look at me, I give to the poor, I sacrifice myself for the good of others, I am so good!”  Just remember, “Though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.”  Just because we’re baptized, we’re practicing Catholics, we perform all manner of charitable acts, even if we have the faith to move mountains, all of this is useless without our constant cooperation with the graces we receive from the sacraments, particularly Holy Communion.  If we don’t, they profit us nothing.  Our resolution today must be to remain good branches of the True Vine, the Mystical Body of Christ, the Catholic Church with her true faith; to remain in the state of grace by obeying the commandments; and to receive devoutly and frequently the Holy Eucharist, the Body of Christ himself.  Living our life by these three standards, we can patiently wait “for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ,” who shall confirm us unto the end, that we may be blameless when we are judged.