Grace, faith, works - help with Catechism

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awfulthings9

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Hey all,
Hate starting a new thread just for this question, but I’m teaching an apologetics class at my church, and in a couple weeks, we’ll reach “Faith Alone vs. Faith + Works”. Now, I’ve got the lesson plan all ready to go, except I’m having trouble locating something in the Catechism. I remember a great paragraph on justification stating that we are saved by grace and justified by faith, but that our faith is justified by our works. The index and TOC aren’t being very useful, but I’d really like to find it (or a paragraph similar to it) to show the members of the class what the church really teaches about this, contrary to the “Catholics think they can work their way to heaven argument”. Anyone able to give me a paragraph number? Also, did I word the above formula about justification appropriately?

Anyway, just to add more to the conversation, we had our first class this last Tuesday - the topic was “The Bible: What It Is . . . And Isn’t”. And we explored the idea of Tradition and the silliness of sola-Scriptura. Had a great turn-out, and everyone seemed to be very excited about the class at the end. A good mix of cradle-Catholics and new converts. Next week - “The Pope and Infallibility - A Rock-Solid Foundation.” Anyone else having luck with similar studies or classes at their parish?
 
Here are some paragraphs and a link to a searchable catechism.

**2005 **Since it belongs to the supernatural order, grace escapes our experience and cannot be known except by faith. We cannot therefore rely on our feelings or our works to conclude that we are justified and saved. However, according to the Lord’s words “Thus you will know them by their fruits”- reflection on God’s blessings in our life and in the lives of the saints offers us a guarantee that grace is at work in us and spurs us on to an ever greater faith and an attitude of trustful poverty.

A pleasing illustration of this attitude is found in the reply of St. Joan of Arc to a question posed as a trap by her ecclesiastical judges: “Asked if she knew that she was in God’s grace, she replied: ‘If I am not, may it please God to put me in it; if I am, may it please God to keep me there.’” ** **2009 Filial adoption, in making us partakers by grace in the divine nature, can bestow true merit on us as a result of God’s gratuitous justice. This is our right by grace, the full right of love, making us “co-heirs” with Christ and worthy of obtaining “the promised inheritance of eternal life.” The merits of our good works are gifts of the divine goodness. "Grace has gone before us; now we are given what is due. . . . Our merits are God’s gifts."

**2010 **Since the initiative belongs to God in the order of grace, no one can merit the initial grace of forgiveness and justification, 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, for the increase of grace and charity, and for the attainment of eternal life. Even temporal goods like health and friendship can be merited in accordance with God’s wisdom. These graces and goods are the object of Christian prayer. Prayer attends to the grace we need for meritorious actions.

**2010 **Since the initiative belongs to God in the order of grace, no one can merit the initial grace of forgiveness and justification, 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, for the increase of grace and charity, and for the attainment of eternal life. Even temporal goods like health and friendship can be merited in accordance with God’s wisdom. These graces and goods are the object of Christian prayer. Prayer attends to the grace we need for meritorious actions.

**2021 **Grace is the help God gives us to respond to our vocation of becoming his adopted sons. It introduces us into the intimacy of the Trinitarian life.

**1983 **The New Law is the grace of the Holy Spirit received by faith in Christ, operating through charity. It finds expression above all in the Lord’s Sermon on the Mount and uses the sacraments to communicate grace to us.

**1983 **The New Law is the grace of the Holy Spirit received by faith in Christ, operating through charity. It finds expression above all in the Lord’s Sermon on the Mount and uses the sacraments to communicate grace to us.

**1996 **Our justification comes from the grace of God. Grace is favor, the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of God, adoptive sons, partakers of the divine nature and of eternal life.

I would recommend that you read through the sections around these paragraphs before you teach your class.

I tried to get such a class going but the pastor was not too open to it.

Blessings
 
It should be mentioned that the merit spoken of in the paragraphs above is our own in that we physically do the works, but God gives us the grace to do the works so we cannot boast of them. (see eph 3:20-21). I understand the latin word used here is “the merit of another”. The Catechism makes it clear that God gives us the grace but Protestants always get bent out of shape about the word merit in the Catechism.
 
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