What is grace in Catholicism?

Answer 1

grace. (Latin gratia, meaning "plesant quality" or "good will") refers to a free and undeserved supernatural gift or help that God gives persons so that they may respond to the divine call to salvation. (See Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) 1996-2005).

Answer 2

We as Catholics believe that God sent his only son, Jesus, down from heaven to save us all from our sins. He died on the cross for us and on the third day he rose from the dead and opened the gates of heaven so that we may have life after death. Also when we receive the sacraments God gives us grace, or forgiveness.

Roman Catholic AnswerGrace is the supernatural gift that God, of His free benevolence, bestows on rational creatures for their eternal salvation. (from Modern Catholic Dictionary by John A. Hardon, S.J.)

Answer 3

Great question.

There are several general aspects under which grace can be understood:

• Grace is favor, the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of God, adoptive sons [and daughters], partakers of the divine nature and of eternal life. (CCC no. 1996)
• 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 [or daughter]" he [or she] can henceforth call God "Father," in union with the only Son. He [or she] receives the life of the Spirit Who breathes charity into him [or her] and Who forms the Church. (CCC no. 1997)
• The grace of Christ is the gratuitous gift that God makes to us of his own life, infused by the Holy Spirit into [one's] 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 [cf. 2 Cor 5:17-18] (CCC no. 1999)

More specifically, there is a distinction between Sanctifying (or Habitual) Grace and that which is termed Actual Grace:

• 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. (CCC no. 2000)

Again there is also a distinction between Sacramental Graces and those that are called Special Graces (or charisms).

• 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. (CCC no. 2003)
• There are furthermore special graces, also called charisms after the Greek term used by St. Paul and meaning "favor," "gratuitous gift," "benefit." 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. (CCC no. 2003)
• Among the special graces ought to be mentioned the graces of state that accompany the excercise of the responsibilities of the Christian life and of the ministries within the Church [cf. Rom 12:6-8]. (CCC no. 2004)

Grace Is Beyond Our Experience

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. [cf. Council of Trent (1547): DS 1533-1534.] However, according to the Lord's words - "Thus you will know them by their fruits" [Mt 7:20] - 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.'" (CCC no. 2005)

REFERENCES

Libreria Editrice Vaticana. Catechism of the Catholic Church, (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1994.)

Answer 4

Grace is undeserved favour.

For example in this verse:

Ephesians 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,

we can see God extends favour (undeserved) to man. There is nothing anybody can do to restore their relationship with God. But God has made it possible for a person to enter a right relationship with HIm.

Answer 5

Catholic AnswerGrace is a totally gratuitous gift of God. We can do absolutely nothing to "earn" it, and we have no "right" to it. The primary means by which God imparts grace to us is through the sacraments, these are the means that Jesus established to communicate grace to us. The first of these, without which, none of the others can be received, is Baptism. The Sacraments work ex opere operato(see below). So the means by which we receive grace from Jesus is by worthy reception of the sacraments performed by the proper minister appointed by Jesus through His Church.

from The Catechism of the Catholic Church, second edition, English translation 1994

Grace: The free and undeserved gift that God gives us to respond to our vocation to become his adopted children. As sanctifying grace, God shares His divine life and friendship with us in a habitual gift, a stable and supernatural disposition that enables the soul to live with God, to act by His love. As actual grace, god gives us the help to conform our lives to His will. Sacramental grace and special graces (charisms, the grace of one's state of life) are gifts of the Holy Spirit to help us live out our Christian vocation ([see paragraphs] 1996, 2000; cf. 654)

from Modern Catholic Dictionary by John A. Hardon, S.J. Doubleday & Co., Inc. Garden City, NY 1980

Ex opere operato. A term defined by the council of Trent to describe how the sacraments confer the grace they signify. Trent condemned the following proposition: "that grace is not conferred 'ex opere operato' by the sacraments of the New Law" (Denzinger 1608). Literally the expression means "from the work performed" stating that grace is always conferred by a sacrament, in virtue of the rite performed and not as a mere sign that grace has already been given, or that the sacrament stimulates the faith of the recipient and thus occasions the obtaining of grace, or that what determines the grace is the virtue of either the minister or recipient of a sacrament. Provided no obstacles (obex) is placed in the way, every sacrament properly administered confers the grace intended by the sacrament. In a true sense the sacraments are instrumental causes of grace.

Sacrament. A sensible sign, instituted by Jesus Christ, by which invisible grace and inward sanctification are communicated to the soul. The essential elements of a sacrament of the New Law are institution by Christ the God-man during his visible stay on earth, and a sensibly perceptible rite that actually confers the supernatural grace it symbolizes...