God doesn’t withhold necessary graces from anybody. We each, even when we are in the state of mortal sin, are able to receive all the graces necessary to save us from hell at any time. But God doesn’t force these graces upon us. He has already shed His blood for us, down to the last drop; He is under no obligation to give any special particular graces to those obstinate in their refusal of His invitation, who insult Him time and again and are often sure to drag others down along with them. His justice is tempered by His mercy, but it isn’t dead. So when some poor soul is obstinate in their sins He is right and just to punish them. He is not obligated to give them an infinite number of chances or to give them that much more than other, more worthy souls, have received in order to make certain their conversion. Or do you think God very cruel if He doesn’t walk up to some stubborn soul, slap him on the face, and give him a vision of his place in Hell if he continued to sin, if that action would ensure his conversion? No, He is under no obligation to give so much more than is ordinarily available to all souls, and besides, He is greatly tied down by our free will and the maliciousness of our sins.
How kind He is, then, to allow others, who have united themselves with His ultimate Sacrifice, to step in on others’ behalf, to stop the hand of His justice rightly falling upon them. How kind He is to allow us to do the penance they have refused to do, to comfort the Lord in His sorrow, so that they may receive some special grace or other intervention, or perhaps even just a little more time than had originally been allotted them, to come to repentance. None of this having been theirs by right, and God not having refused them the graces open to us all to convert, it is solely His mercy that takes into account the prayers of His just when treating of these cases.
