Could you explain that from Scripture or Tradition? Is it that the righteousness of God is not given **fully **to me through faith in Christ?
Note that in Catholic teaching Justification & Sanctification are related. So we need to be careful of not talking past each other in semantics of terms when Protestants talk to Catholics in this area. Righteousness is a concept of “Justice”. Conversion requires repentance and perfecting the faith - this is “a Divine process”.
We can get some clear insights here from Catholic Teaching.
CCC 128 … Nevertheless, the fruits of the sacraments also depend on the disposition of the one who receives them.
There are degrees of cooperation with God’s grace. Grace does not consume us and pervade us - we must accept it, embrace it and learn to walk or cooperate with it. Not all on earth embrace equally. In heaven a person is perfected and embraces fully God’s grace since one’s human frailties and imperfections are stripped away and he is purified and at the peak of his spiritual perfection. Literally one is all they can be spiritually in heaven. Therefor it is impossible to compare a person on earth to anyone in heaven - even the least. The saints on earth are not even equal to the least in heaven in my understanding.
This actually gives strong credence to the benefits of praying with the communion of saints who are in heaven. They are perfected and in God’s presence perpetually and have enormous intercessional abilities.
Also note the notion of increasing righteousness and growing conversion to Christ in the following CCC. No one has perfect faith - it is a thing that requires perfection. Therefor, conversion does not happen in one large fell swoop normally. It takes the Divine Physician time to correct our passions and to get us walking perfectly with us without completely taking us over like demons try to do in a possession. No, The Holy Spirit works through consent and with us in a way that we are transformed yet uniquely still maintain our individuality - but perfected in Christ.
*CCC 1848
As St. Paul affirms, “Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.” 118 But to do its work grace must uncover sin so as to convert our hearts and bestow on us “righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” 119 **Like a physician who probes the wound before treating it, God, by his Word and by his Spirit, casts a living light on sin: **
Conversion requires convincing of sin; it includes the interior judgment of conscience, and this, being a proof of the action of the Spirit of truth in man’s inmost being, becomes at the same time the start of a new grant of grace and love: “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Thus in this “convincing concerning sin” we discover a double gift: the gift of the truth of conscience and the gift of the certainty of redemption. The Spirit of truth is the Consoler. 120
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
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
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
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
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. *
Hope this helps some.
James
