Effects of mortal sin

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Character_Zero

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I have heard that mortal sin kills your relationship with God and cuts you off from grace.
What I do not understand is if we are cut off from God and from grace, where do we get the grace to repent? Anything good we do is from God. (according to my undertanding of St. Augustine).
Anyway I’ve hit an intellectual dead end here… where did I make a wrong turn??
 
That is a great article, thanks for the link.
Question: when sanctifying grace is lost by mortally sinning, but then we repent, confess, and are absolved and sanctifying grace is restored - is it the same sanctifying grace we had and lost, or a new sanctifying grace?
For example, when being restored to grace, do we get back the grace we’ve received from all of the sacraments in our life, or are they forever lost?
 
Catholic Answers dealt with this question in 1994,

"When a person commits mortal sin he implicitly rejects God and the entire life of holiness he had led up to that point, including the reward he would have gotten for his good deeds. When he repents and comes back to God through the sacrament of confession, does this mean he will have to start from zero in gaining new rewards?

"No. The common teaching of Catholic theologians is that there is a ‘revival of merit’ when a person comes back to God. When a person comes back to God, he implicitly reaffirms the prior life of holiness he had led, so his rewards for that life are restored.

“In Infinita Dei Misericordia (1924), Pope Pius XI taught that penitents have ‘the fullness of the merits and the gifts which they lost through sin . . . restored and given back.’ Thomas Aquinas taught the same thing (Summa Theologiae 3a:89:5).”
 
Vincent you are great, thanks for helping me! And I sure am happy about that answer! 🙂
 
Welcome!

It’s great to know that God is so gracious, isn’t it?
 
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