I'm Going Crazy!

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Ok, here’s the problem. I don’t understand the Catholic teaching on salvation, justification,and sanctification. I don’t completely understand what those terms mean and I don’t know how we aquire them. Could someone please give me the Church’s definition of these terms and give me the official teaching on these concepts? I always though it was salvation by faith and works together, but I’ve read some things saying that we are saved by works through faith which seems perilously close to the Protestant notion of salvation. Could youguys please help me? Trying to understand this is driving me crazy!!! Thanks you!

Pax,
Zach
 
JUSTIFICATION: The gracious action of God which frees us from sin and communicates “the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ” (Rom 3:22). Justification is not only the remission of sins, but also the sanctification and renewal of the interior man (Catechism of the Catholic Church1987-1989).

SALVATION: The forgiveness of sins and restoration of friendship with God, which can be done by God alone (CCC 169).

SANCTIFYING GRACE: The grace which heals our human nature wounded by sin by giving us a share in the divine life of the Trinity. It is a habitual, supernatural gift which continues the work of sanctifying us–of making us “perfect,” holy, and Christlike (CCC 1999).
 
ARTICLE 2
GRACE AND JUSTIFICATION


I. Justification

1987
The grace of the Holy Spirit has the power to justify us, that is, to cleanse us from our sins and to communicate to us “the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ” and through Baptism:34

But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. For we know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves as dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.35

1988
Through the power of the Holy Spirit we take part in Christ’s Passion by dying to sin, and in his Resurrection by being born to a new life; we are members of his Body which is the Church, branches grafted onto the vine which is himself:36

[God] gave himself to us through his Spirit. By the participation of the Spirit, we become communicants in the divine nature. . . . For this reason, those in whom the Spirit dwells are divinized.37

1989
The first work of the grace of the Holy Spirit is conversion, effecting justification in accordance with Jesus’ proclamation at the beginning of the Gospel: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."38 Moved by grace, man turns toward God and away from sin, thus accepting forgiveness and righteousness from on high. "Justification is not only the remission of sins, but also the sanctification and renewal of the interior man."39

1990
Justification detaches man from sin which contradicts the love of God, and purifies his heart of sin. Justification follows upon God’s merciful initiative of offering forgiveness. It reconciles man with God. It frees from the enslavement to sin, and it heals.

1991
Justification is at the same time the acceptance of God’s righteousness through faith in Jesus Christ. Righteousness (or “justice”) here means the rectitude of divine love. With justification, faith, hope, and charity are poured into our hearts, and obedience to the divine will is granted us.

1992
Justification has been merited for us by the Passion of Christ who offered himself on the cross as a living victim, holy and pleasing to God, and whose blood has become the instrument of atonement for the sins of all men. Justification is conferred in Baptism, the sacrament of faith. It conforms us to the righteousness of God, who makes us inwardly just by the power of his mercy. Its purpose is the glory of God and of Christ, and the gift of eternal life:40

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, they are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as an expiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins; it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies him who has faith in Jesus.41

1993
Justification establishes cooperation between God’s grace and man’s freedom. On man’s part it is expressed by the assent of faith to the Word of God, which invites him to conversion, and in the cooperation of charity with the prompting of the Holy Spirit who precedes and preserves his assent:

When God touches man’s heart through the illumination of the Holy Spirit, man himself is not inactive while receiving that inspiration, since he could reject it; and yet, without God’s grace, he cannot by his own free will move himself toward justice in God’s sight.42

1994
Justification is the most excellent work of God’s love made manifest in Christ Jesus and granted by the Holy Spirit. It is the opinion of St. Augustine that “the justification of the wicked is a greater work than the creation of heaven and earth,” because "heaven and earth will pass away but the salvation and justification of the elect . . . will not pass away."43 He holds also that the justification of sinners surpasses the creation of the angels in justice, in that it bears witness to a greater mercy.

1995
The Holy Spirit is the master of the interior life. By giving birth to the "inner man,"44 justification entails the sanctification of his whole being:

Just as you once yielded your members to impurity and to greater and greater iniquity, so now yield your members to righteousness for sanctification. . . . But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the return you get is sanctification and its end, eternal life.45

Catechism of the Catholic Church
usccb.org/catechism/text/pt3sect1chpt3art2.shtml
 
II. Grace

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.46

1997
Grace is a participation in the life of God. 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 call God “Father,” in union with the only Son. He receives the life of the Spirit who breathes charity into him and who forms the Church.

1998
This vocation to eternal life is supernatural. It depends entirely on God’s gratuitous initiative, for he alone can reveal and give himself. It surpasses the power of human intellect and will, as that of every other creature.47

1999
The grace of Christ is the gratuitous gift that God makes to us of his own life, infused by the Holy Spirit into our soul to heal it of sin and to sanctify it. It is the sanctifying or deifying grace received in Baptism. It is in us the source of the work of sanctification:48

Therefore if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself.49

2000
Sanctifying grace is an habitual gift, a stable and supernatural disposition that perfects the soul itself to enable it to live with God, to act by his love. Habitual grace, the permanent disposition to live and act in keeping with God’s call, is distinguished from actual graces which refer to God’s interventions, whether at the beginning of conversion or in the course of the work of sanctification.

2001
The preparation of man for the reception of grace is already a work of grace. This latter is needed to arouse and sustain our collaboration in justification through faith, and in sanctification through charity. God brings to completion in us what he has begun, "since he who completes his work by cooperating with our will began by working so that we might will it:"50

Indeed we also work, but we are only collaborating with God who works, for his mercy has gone before us. It has gone before us so that we may be healed, and follows us so that once healed, we may be given life; it goes before us so that we may be called, and follows us so that we may be glorified; it goes before us so that we may live devoutly, and follows us so that we may always live with God: for without him we can do nothing.51

2002
God’s free initiative demands man’s free response, for God has created man in his image by conferring on him, along with freedom, the power to know him and love him. The soul only enters freely into the communion of love. God immediately touches and directly moves the heart of man. He has placed in man a longing for truth and goodness that only he can satisfy. The promises of “eternal life” respond, beyond all hope, to this desire:

If at the end of your very good works . . ., you rested on the seventh day, it was to foretell by the voice of your book that at the end of our works, which are indeed “very good” since you have given them to us, we shall also rest in you on the sabbath of eternal life.52

2003
Grace is first and foremost the gift of the Spirit who justifies and sanctifies us. But grace also includes the gifts that the Spirit grants us to associate us with his work, to enable us to collaborate in the salvation of others and in the growth of the Body of Christ, the Church. There are sacramental graces, gifts proper to the different sacraments. There are furthermore special graces, also called charisms after the Greek term used by St. Paul and meaning “favor,” “gratuitous gift,” "benefit."53 Whatever their character—sometimes it is extraordinary, such as the gift of miracles or of tongues—charisms are oriented toward sanctifying grace and are intended for the common good of the Church. They are at the service of charity which builds up the Church.54

2004
Among the special graces ought to be mentioned the graces of state that accompany the exercise of the responsibilities of the Christian life and of the ministries within the Church:

Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; he who teaches, in his teaching; he who exhorts, in his exhortation; he who contributes, in liberality; he who gives aid, with zeal; he who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.55

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.56 However, according to the Lord’s words—"Thus you will know them by their fruits"57—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.’"58

The Catechism of the Catholic Church
usccb.org/catechism/text/pt3sect1chpt3art2.shtml
 
IN BRIEF
2017
The grace of the Holy Spirit confers upon us the righteousness of God. Uniting us by faith and Baptism to the Passion and Resurrection of Christ, the Spirit makes us sharers in his life.

2018
Like conversion, justification has two aspects. Moved by grace, man turns toward God and away from sin, and so accepts forgiveness and righteousness from on high.

2019
Justification includes the remission of sins, sanctification, and the renewal of the inner man.

2020
Justification has been merited for us by the Passion of Christ. It is granted us through Baptism. It conforms us to the righteousness of God, who justifies us. It has for its goal the glory of God and of Christ, and the gift of eternal life. It is the most excellent work of God’s mercy.

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.

2022
The divine initiative in the work of grace precedes, prepares, and elicits the free response of man. Grace responds to the deepest yearnings of human freedom, calls freedom to cooperate with it, and perfects freedom.

2023
Sanctifying grace is the gratuitous gift of his life that God makes to us; it is infused by the Holy Spirit into the soul to heal it of sin and to sanctify it.

2024
Sanctifying grace makes us “pleasing to God.”
Charisms, special graces of the Holy Spirit, are oriented to sanctifying grace and are intended for the common good of the Church. God also acts through many actual graces, to be distinguished from habitual grace which is permanent in us.

2025
We can have merit in God’s sight only because of God’s free plan to associate man with the work of his grace. Merit is to be ascribed in the first place to the grace of God, and secondly to man’s collaboration. Man’s merit is due to God.

2026
The grace of the Holy Spirit can confer true merit on us, by virtue of our adoptive filiation, and in accordance with God’s gratuitous justice. Charity is the principal source of merit in us before God.

2027
No one can merit the initial grace which is at the origin of conversion. Moved by the Holy Spirit, we can merit for ourselves and for others all the graces needed to attain eternal life, as well as necessary temporal goods.

2028
“All Christians . . . are called to the fullness of Christian life and to the perfection of charity” (LG 40 § 2). “Christian perfection has but one limit, that of having none” (St. Gregory of Nyssa, De vita Mos.: PG 44, 300D).

2029
“If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Mt 16:24).
 
Thanks you guys, I understand the words now :). But I’m not sure if you answered the whole how are we saved bit. is it by faith and works? is it by wokrks through faith? Is there a difference? If you already answered these I’m sorry, it all looked like quotes from the Catechism defining the words so I just skimmed.

Pax,
Zach
 
Read Matthew 25 verses 31-46, and you’ll see that the most important thing is love, love shown in kind and generous deeds towards others.
Know and follow the gospel teachings of love, and share in the Mass and the Sacraments regularly…and there’s no reason in the world why you should go crazy…it’s simple, really.
Salvation is about love.
 
Thanks you guys, I understand the words now :). But I’m not sure if you answered the whole how are we saved bit. is it by faith and works? is it by wokrks through faith? Is there a difference? If you already answered these I’m sorry, it all looked like quotes from the Catechism defining the words so I just skimmed.

Pax,
Zach
Zach, the works we do by grace are Christ’s own work within us. IOW, He accomplishes in and through us by His transforming grace what He would have us be and do. So Christ is meriting within us FOR us. We, then, by the gift of our free will (a will that is truly set free as it more and more embraces the will of the Father) give our assent to His action in our lives – or not.

So it is not an accumulation of our “good works” that saves us, but rather the good works that Christ Himself accomplished in and through us if we offer no resistance; the growth of our spiritual life depends on responding to that grace and being more attentive to the promptings of the Holy Spirit to extend the Incarnation by our acts of faith, hope and charity, and by the practice of the virtues. To paraphrase Scott Hahn, Christ did not do all the works so that we don’t have to do anything, but Christ sends His Holy Spirit on us so that we now CAN live by the Law of Love.

With God’s grace we can avoid sin and must be determined to avoid mortal sin or we will lose God’s grace and thus salvation. With God’s grace we can further determine to avoid venial sin. With God’s grace we can do this because, as our Lord told St. Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you,” i.e., to live virtuously under trial and not sin. Some erroneously take an either/or position, i.e., either it’s ALL God’s grace and not our doing at all, OR its all our doing and not God’s grace at all. The Scriptural Truth is that it is ALL God’s grace and our doing it at the same time. Thus when a Catholic says salvation depends on avoiding serious sin he presupposes that this is with God’s grace, while Protestants presuppose the opposite because of simplistic either/or thinking which is a defect of the mind applied to the question of grace and free will.

Thus the Protestant understanding of grace is stemming from an erroneous human way of thinking in absolute either/or categories. They cannot image a cooperation between man and God, i.e., of God putting a person in a state of grace qualitatively so that his free will actions under grace and with grace brings about the result of salvation FIRST willed by God and simultaneously willed by the person’s free will, i.e., that the grace of God’s will enters the free will of the believer in a way that does not force it, but can be ignored, which if not ignored brings about salvation, God and the person acting together.
 
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