What does it mean to be outside the state of grace?

[Binary]

Though it’s an important concept, about the only things I can say I know for sure are that it means one’s soul is in grave danger, and that one cannot receive the sacraments (except for reconciliation).

Can you give me some more information on this with respect to prayer and grace, or anything else you think is worth knowing?

 

[bmullins]

To be outside of the state of grace is to purposely and knowingly turn your back on God and his forgiveness. It’s not something that happens on accident. You don’t accidentally stumble into mortal sin. Does that mean that you shouldn’t worry about mortal sin? Not at all. If one sins venially over and over, they lead themselves down that road. By opening the door wider and wider they ‘harden their heart’ to the point where the mortal sin creeps up on them. We should treat all sin as a serious matter, but to also trust in grace.

One of the most important things to realize is that the grace itself received in our Sacraments helps us to avoid sin in the first place. Over the years, and with the help of the Protestant reformation, the knowledge that God gives us graces through the Eucharist and Reconciliation to help us avoid sin has been lost or at least misplaced. That is why receiving the Eucharist is such a powerful thing, and why Reconciliation should be used. You can indeed pray for forgiveness with a truly contrite heart, and receive forgiveness. But there are special graces that we receive by ‘confessing to one another’ as the Bible instructs us.

 

[Barbkw]

As above, technically speaking to be “outside the state of grace” is an either/or test based on the mortal sins we’ve committed in rejection of Christ.

Relatively speaking during a lifetime or during the process of conversion (on a sliding scale involving venial sin and / or one’s personal attachment to Christ) a person can be both inside and yet “outside” the fullness of His grace at the same time.

God provides His fullness of grace to each of us howver we may be in various stages of openness to Him at any given time. Also, our emotions (perception experience) of the receipt of His grace will ebb and flow within each of us.

 

[Cathryn]

To be outside the state of grace is to be in the state of mortal sin. If one loses the grace in His soul by committing knowingly, and willingly, a serious sin, the Catholic needs to confess this to a priest to be restored to the state of Grace. The Catholic is either spiritual alive or spiriutally dead. If the Catholic dies outside the state of grace, he is dying in the state of moral sin. Restoration to this state of grace is what the Sacrament of Reconcilition is about. One is not to receive Holy Communion if one is outside the state of grace.

 

[Cathryn]

70 …``With the whole tradition of the Church, we call mortal sin the act by which man freely and consciously rejects God, his law, the covenant of love that God offers, preferring to turn in on himself or to some created and finite reality, something contrary to the divine will (conversto ad creaturam). This can occur in a direct and formal way, in the sins of idolatry, apostasy and atheism; or in an equivalent way, as in every act of disobedience to God’s commandments in a grave matter.’’[118] VERITATIS SPLENDOR

Being outside the state of grace can happen with a single act of disobedience to God in a grave matter, if it is done with knowledge, and consent. Some examples can be masturbation, deliberately missng Mass on Sunday or holy days of obligation, sex outside of marriage, using artificial contraception, etc.

God can give us actual grace to call us back into communion with Him. We can respond to this actual grace by repenting and confessing our sins. Our lost grace is restored through the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Living in the state of Grace, is living with the life of Christ in us.

 

[empther]

Consider this.
Suppose God created people and then left them to themselves. Would people what to “be perfect even as the Father is perfect”? Impossible. It’s just not in us. But we must be perfect to get into Heaven.

So God gives us sanctifying grace. newadvent.org/cathen/06701a.htm
This gives us the power and ability to be holy, to seek after God.
Part of the package is the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit, who acts in us as a kind of partner in the journey, and this indwellling is a grace, but sanctifying grace is its own thing and part of our soul.

Through mortal sin, both sanctifying grace and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is gone from the soul.
We can repent and have grace and the Holy Spirit restored,
but if we don’t before death, then we have rejected God and are lost.