Australia Day Homily 2015

Australia Day 2015

Homily (Our Lady of the Rosary Cathedral, Waitara)

Let me begin by repeating the opening prayer for today’s Mass:

Grant, we pray, O Lord our God
That as the Cross shines in our southern skies,
so may Christ bring light to our nation, to its peoples old and new,
and by saving grace, transform our lives.

70,000 years into our human history, 227 years into our colonization, and 114 years into our nationhood, Australia is older than the rest of civilisation, yet still new in its culture and outlook. We remain a people and nation capable of seeing a new vision in this very ancient land. This strange mixture of old and new continues to make Australia what it is: a country that has three fundamental and overlapping layers of identity – our indigenous history, our Western legacy, and our immigrant inheritance. This three-fold identity is what God’s providence has bequeathed to us, Australia’s current generations; and it is from this identity that we are to shape a new vision in Christ, as we have prayed.

The perennial risk for Australia today is, I think, to forget to honour – or even reject outright – one or other dimension of our threefold indigenous, western, immigrant identity. When we have failed to recognize, honour and learn from our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander forebears, we have become a poorer and uncaring nation. When we have neglected to acknowledge the Judeo-Christian basis of our society, we have become a weaker and blindfolded nation. When we have scorned new arrivals to these shores, we have become a wary and ungenerous nation. The loss of any of these three layers of identity has led to the loss of our goodness as a people.

This is not the new vision that we have been given to reflect. God has endowed us with his goodness, so that his vision may fill our sights – and a new fire of the Holy Spirit might be lit among us. This is the great calling Christian Australians have been given for the sake of our country. We have Christ, who is incarnated in our very identity: Jesus has indigenous, western and ethnic looks; he has pitched his tent among us. As such, we Christian Australians have what is needed to see the new horizon of our future, because our faces have been formed by grace to show the face of Jesus to our nation and people.

To believe this is to hold that Christian Australians have unique gifts to give back to this country: the gift to hope for what is good, the gift to see what might be possible, and the gift to act with resolve. There are three current matters which strike me as signs for us to act accordingly. Firstly, over the next year or so, the question of constitutional recognition of our indigenous peoples will become a major political issue. We can and should be a strong voice in favour of this recognition as an act of justice. Secondly, the issues of religious freedom and freedom of speech will continue to play out in our society. We can be a firm voice of encouragement amongst those of faith who strive to speak with dignity and reason. Thirdly, and most pressing, two of our young citizens, Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, are on death row in Bali. We can be a voice of compassionate support to them by contacting the Indonesian Ambassador in Canberra.

Australians can have a new vision in this ancient land, shaped by the hands and the face of Christ. Let this be our prayer today, and our resolve to act accordingly.

Most Rev Peter A Comensoli

Bishop of Broken Bay

26 January 2015

On Reform in the Catholic Church

At the conclusion of The Great Grace conference (www.thegreatgrace.org.au), I offer the following reflection...

Each year the 'Season of Grace' takes on its own particular flavour, reflecting something of the concerns that currently occupy the lives of Christians. Sometimes the difference is significant, sometime not. The season is for the people, not the people for the season.

For Australian Catholics, this year has been dominated by two issues: the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse and the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI along with the election of Pope Francis. As it happens, the two are not unrelated because at the centre of both lies the question of ecclesial reform.

The appalling phenomenon of child sexual abuse by some clergy, religious and church personnel – and the inaction of some bishops in dealing forthrightly and appropriately with it – has come to dominate the life of the Church in Australia. As hard questions of justice, honesty and accountability are asked of the Church, it is fair to expect that the call for reform will become a recurring theme.

What confronts the Australian Church specifically also confronts the global Church generally. For a variety of reasons, governance has emerged as a key issue for Pope Emeritus Benedict as he resigned, and as Pope Francis has taken up the Petrine ministry simplicity and resolve. Again, this has raised questions of reform.

But what shape does reform in the life of the Church need to take – locally and globally, individually and collectively – for it to become effective and fruitful? What, in other words, makes for good reform in an ecclesial context? It is perhaps providential that this question has emerged in the confluence of the sexual abuse crisis and the papal election. Providential, because this year marks the 50^th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council, a Council often seen as one of the great reforming Councils of the Church, and whose ongoing relevance might best be achieved by approaching it from the perspective of a hermeneutic of reform. Ecclesia semper reformanda est, as the saying goes.

But how is this to be done fruitfully? How does the Church go about learning well the way of ongoing reform? Reform is often seen as a ‘root and branch’ kind of thing: find the roots, and the branches will follow. For corporations, reform will need to be couched in economic terms; for civic authorities, in bureaucratic terms. While the Church has both corporate and civic dimensions to it, it is neither of these in essence. Consequently, the kind of reform that the Church needs to undertake has to be particular to its essentially ecclesial reality.

In other words, each reality calls for a response that is particular to its identity and structure. This is because the sources for reform will be found from within, even when the need for reform is recognised from without. Otherwise, there will be no genuine effort to foster a culture of reform, no real movement towards the good. Political parties know this principle only too well; they are reminded of it every time they lose an election. In other words, imposing change from without is not the same as undertaking reform from within. Change can be imposed but need not be causally related to identity and structure. Consequently, it can be ill fitting and latter abandoned. Reform, on the other hand, when based on the principle of internal re-sourcement, will always have a better chance of taking hold.

For the Church, the principle of reform particular to its identity and structure has its biblical roots in the theological notion of conversion. The Prophecy of Isaiah, for example, begins with – and is based on – the call to conversion of heart. The Lord’s Chosen People had rebelled against truth and goodness; their practices and their very lives had become corrupt. The Lord, through Isaiah, calls them back to himself and back to their status as God’s chosen:

Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;
remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes;
cease to do evil, learn to do good;
seek justice,
correct oppression;
bring justice to the fatherless,
plead the widow’s cause. (Isa 1.16-17)

The Lord’s call to conversion takes the form of a twofold command. The first part is: cease to do evil. A decisive break with the past is required, so as to make a start on the road to transformation. An immediate end to evil behaviour by individuals, along with any cultural practices that have become corrupt, is the first step on the road to reform.

In the matter of sexual abuse, practical measures must be adopted to address the harm already done to innocent and vulnerable lives, and to deal resolutely with perpetrators. ‘Truth’, ‘justice’ and ‘healing’ need to be more than mere words spoken by the Church; they must be firm resolutions implemented in the life of the Church and her members. Along with genuine repentance, they form the basis from which the Church can begin the journey of reform. Here are her roots.

On its own, however, the cessation of evil is not enough. A more radical step is required by the Lord to bring about a lasting culture of conversion: learn to do good. This second half of the commandment is future oriented. The task of transformation is never finished; the work of reform is ongoing. Conversion is neither a static thing, nor a once-and-for-all, one-off occurrence. While it has an identifiable beginning, it has no fixed conclusion. Conversion is a way of life lived ‘in the Lord’, who is the source and summit of all that is good.

While the evil of sexual abuse of minors by Church personnel and the inaction of Church authorities must cease, the task of the Church into the future – both locally and globally – will be to pursue a culture that is ever more effective in protecting and nurturing the vulnerable amongst her members. This shift has been underway for some time in Australia, and more recently internationally (acknowledging that not all would accept this claim). But more can be done; more will need to be done.

If genuine reform in the Church can occur only if it is based on a principle of internal re-sourcement particular to her ecclesial identity and structure, then how is the Church to go about doing this? This is not the question of changing things that need immediate rectification (the first part of the call to conversion), but the deeper and more challenging question of what constitutes effective and lasting cultural transformation in the life of the Church. The Second Vatican Council provides an excellent means of answering this question. As the most significant moment of renewal in the life of the Church in recent times, and as the principle compass available for pointing the way into the 21^st century, Vatican II provides a unique reference point for the question of reform.

Benedict XVI, now Pope emeritus, is the last of the current leaders of the Church to have personally participated in the Council. As historians note, his role in shaping the texts of the Council was quite significant. Consequently, Benedict offers a unique insider perspective on what the Council set out to do, and significantly, he places the question of reform at the centre of how Vatican II is to be understood and received.

In 2005 (at the time of the 40^th anniversary of the Council’s conclusion), Benedict had this to say about the problems that arose as a result of covering the interpretation of the Council in the twin veils of ‘rupture’ and ‘continuity’, and the need instead of uncovering the true meaning of the Council from the perspective of ‘reform’:

The hermeneutic of discontinuity is countered by the hermeneutic of reform, as it was presented first by Pope John XXIII in his Speech inaugurating the Council on 11 October 1962… It is clear that this commitment to expressing a specific truth in a new way demands new thinking on this truth and a new and vital relationship with it; it is also clear that new words can only develop if they come from an informed understanding of the truth expressed... (Benedict XVI, Address to Roman Curia, 2005)

Notice how Benedict points to the operation of the principle of internal re-sourcement as being the basis both of a true reform in ecclesial identity and structure, and of a true interpretation of what the Council was on about. The effective development of ‘new ways’, ‘new thinking’ and ‘new words’ comes about only by a thorough commitment to and understanding of what has already been established as true. The commitment of the Council was to the reform of the Church; but the means through which this was undertaken was to be the growth of new branches from the roots of the Christian tradition.

What Benedict is expressing here is the principle of catholicity, the internal process of ensuring that the Christian tradition remains both faithful to its roots and fruitful for the world at any given time. The emphasis to highlight here is the ‘for the world’, noting that it is not ‘of the world’. To recall, external categories of change imposed on a particular culture will not bring about the genuine internal reform desired of that culture.

Consider, for example, from where the chief Conciliar reforms in liturgy, scripture and ecclesiology emerged. Each of these underwent major internal renewal in the period between Vatican I and Vatican II, precipitated by the contemporary circumstances, but undertaken from a principle of re-sourcement. When the Council came to find the language into which these areas of Church life would reside, the work of re-sourcement had already been done. These are all examples of reform ‘from within’ that have led to major and positive developments in the way the Church worships, in ecumenical and interfaith relations, and in the vocation of the laity in the mission of the Church. (Remembering, of course, that reform is ongoing, and none of these developments have reached their peak of understanding and commitment.)

In comparison, sexual abuse as an ecclesial phenomenon has been most prevalent in the 60s, 70s and 80s, precisely the time period in which, first, continuity with the past dominated Church life and seminary formation, and then its dialectical bedfellow, rupture, predominated. While not reading a direct correspondence into things, it is not without significance that this phenomenon in the Church parallels the rise and mainstreaming of the sexual revolution in society. Both outright rejection in Church life of the issues underlying the sexual revolution, on the one hand, and uncritical accommodation of its manifestations, on the other, took its toll. The change in sexual morality  ‘from without’ certainly had its impact on the life of the Church (and quite evidently in houses of formation). But can it be justifiably claimed to have precipitated a genuine reform – that is: a development for the good – in the culture of the Church?

The elements of Benedict’s ‘hermeneutic of reform’ is nothing new in the life of the Church. Both Yves Congar in the 1960s and John Henry Newman in the late 1800s, made exactly the same arguments for genuine reform: the application of a principle of internal re-sourcement is the only way to a true expression of catholicity.

Firstly, Congar:

There are only two possible ways of bringing about renewal or updating. You can either make the new element that you want to put forward normative, or you can take as normative the existing reality that needs to be updated or renewed… You will end up with either a mechanical updating in danger of becoming both a novelty and a schismatic reform, on the one hand, or a genuine renewal (a true development) that is a reform in and of the Church, on the other hand. (Y Congar, True and False Reform in the Church, 1967)

Secondly, Newman:

Those [developments] which do but contradict and reverse the course of doctrine which has been developed before them, and out of which they spring, are certainly corrupt; for a corruption is a development in that very stage in which it ceases to illustrate, and begins to disturb, the acquisitions gained in its previous history. (J H Newman, A Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, 1878)

It should not be seen as a mere coincidence that both Newman and Congar are universally recognised as being two of the great ‘prophets’ who shaped the reforming agenda taken up by the Second Vatican Council. Any analysis of the reception of the Council in the life of the Church today, any contemporary call for reform in the life of the Church precipitated by current events and times, and any future reform proposed by the new Pope, would do well to keep in mind the elements by which genuine ecclesial reform will happen.

As a theological friend from outside of the Catholic tradition has recently put it: “No one who has not learned to be traditional can dare to innovate.” (Oliver O’Donovan, A Conversation Waiting to Happen, 2009)

Some personal thoughts on grace as we begin the Year of Grace

Below is a short article I was asked to prepare for the 'Inform' series of the CAEC of Sydney Archdiocese. I offer it today, on the first day of the Year of Grace, with the hope that it might stimulate some personal reflection.

AMAZING (YEAR OF) GRACE:

A PERSONAL REFLECTION

Introduction

From Pentecost 2012 to Pentecost 2013, the Bishops of Australia have invited all Catholics throughout the country to join with them in a ‘Year of Grace’. This Year is an invitation for the entire Church community in Australia – bishops, priests, religious and lay faithful – to ‘start afresh from Christ’. But if we are to embrace well this special time, it might be helpful to take a little time to reflect about the experience of grace and how it operates in our lives.[1]

What’s in a word?    

In 2010, ‘Grace’ was the 14^th most popular name for a baby girl in Australia.[2] As a result, we currently have 1,271 Graces entering their ‘terrible twos’, and no doubt causing their parents no end of headaches! ‘Grace’ is certainly a well-loved way of being identified. However, the word itself is not just a pretty name. We tend to know how to use the word ‘grace’, with its many variations, in all sorts of ordinary ways. Yet many, if not most of us, would struggle to define ‘grace’ with any clarity. So, what exactly is this thing called grace? What is so amazing about it (as the famous 18^th century hymn suggests)?[3] To find out, perhaps the best place to start is with the word itself.

“Grace to you…!” exclaims St Paul at the beginning and the end of every single one of his letters. These were his permanent words of greeting and farewell. Grace formed the bookends, so to speak, of all that Paul thought and wrote about. Grace was the invisible thread that bound together his proclamation of Jesus Christ.

Whenever Paul wrote about ‘grace’ he used an ancient Greek root-word: cháris. The most basic meaning of cháris is this: ‘that which delights’. Grace is a delight for the person who receives it; it is not a difficulty sent to be endured. This suggests, therefore, that the word ‘grace’ is closely related in meaning to the word ‘joy’, which itself may be defined as something good that brings delight. And this is exactly the case: ‘joy’ in ancient Greek – chará – is one of the words which shares its roots with cháris. Whenever Paul was writing to his beloved Christian communities, he was writing with grace in his heart, the cause and the companion of his joy in them, and the gift he most wanted for them.

Every time we say the ‘Hail Mary’ we begin: “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.” These words refer to the greeting by the angel Gabriel to Mary at the Annunciation (Lk 1.28). The actual quotation is: “Greetings, O favoured one, the Lord is with you.” Mary is ‘full of grace’ in the prayer because she is the one who was ‘highly favoured’ by God. What this tells us is that grace is something to rejoice in – as Mary certainly did – because it is something favourable bestowed on the recipient. Grace is something real received (the favour itself), and not just a feeling experienced (the joy engendered).

A favour, of course, is something that is meant to be of benefit to the receiver; it is something good to be received, not a burden imposed. Therefore, what was bestowed as a favour by God was received as a gift by Mary. And this, too, is backed up in the Greek: charitóō means ‘favour’, and chárisma means ‘gift’. Therefore, to speak of grace as ‘a favour bestowed’ is also to speak of grace as ‘a gift received’.

Yet, not every gift is a grace. The gift of an iPad might bring delight to the receiver, but we would hardly call it a grace bestowed by the giver! So, what kind of favour is grace? It is not without reason we call the little prayers we say before meals ‘Grace’. It reminds us that grace is the kind of favour that bestows a blessing. Our Lord often used ‘grace’ in this way. This is nowhere more evident than at the Last Supper when Jesus blessed the bread and wine, which he then freely gave to his disciples as the blessing of his own Body and Blood (Mt 26.26-29).

The Greek word used to translate what Jesus said at the Last Supper (and on many other occasions) is eucharistéō, which means both ‘to show favour’, and ‘to give thanks’. This tells us that the blessing of grace is intimately linked to gratitude and thanksgiving. Grace is a blessing that brings forth gratitude and thanksgiving in the one who receives it. It is from this blessing aspect of grace that we arrive at the word ‘Eucharist’, the privileged name the Church gives to the truly great Sacrament of Thanksgiving, given to all of humanity on our journey through life and history.

To sum up, we can now see that there is a lovely gathering of words around the word ‘grace’. There is joy, favour and gift happening here. There is also blessing, thanksgiving and gratitude. All of these are exemplified beautifully in the life of the Blessed Virgin Mary, our ‘most highly favoured Lady’.[4] Moreover, this happy confluence of words also suggests to us a simple definition for grace.

Grace is:

(i)             a real gift or favour (from God),

(ii)           that is a blessing,

(iii)          freely given as a benefit,

(iv)          and received as a joy,

(v)           prompting gratitude and thanksgiving.[5]

That’s quite a lot in one word!

It’s all in the relationship.

One thing that quickly becomes obvious about this little definition is that grace can only exist and operate within a loving relationship. This is because the blessing that is the gift of grace always directs us back to the one who gives, and forward to the one who receives. At the giving end, the presence of grace can only begin to be revealed when a person looks with love upon someone else. It is with a gaze of love that the lover will recognise what favour will truly befit and bring joy to the beloved. On the receiving end, the presence of grace can only be fully revealed when someone returns the look of love. It is with the returning gaze of the beloved that the lover will know that the favour bestowed has been accepted as a fitting gift to receive.

Therefore, grace is the call and response – the invitation and acceptance – of love. Love needs a giver, a receiver, and the gift itself. But where are we to find such grace in full operation? St John comes to our aid in answering this question. He realised that if Jesus is the true and complete manifestation of God’s love (Jn 3.16), and if this love involved the pledge of his life to the very end (Jn 15.13), then that will tells us who God is. And so indeed John declared: “God is love” (1Jn 4.8). God is grace in operation: the Giver, and the Receiver, and the Gift of love.

It is only as three Persons that the one true God can be the God of love. God the Father gives his love freely to his Son; God the Son freely returns that gift of love; God the Holy Spirit is the personification of that gift. Grace, therefore, reveals to us the mystery of the Blessed Trinity as the mystery of love. If we want God to be the One who truly and completely loves unconditionally, then only the Triune God will do.[6]

Therefore, grace always shelters under the umbrella of love, which is the umbrella of God. It is the name we give to the outpouring of love; it is the tell-tale sign of the presence of the God-who-loves. This is why ‘grace’ is such a significant word for Christians, and why it is crucial to appreciate that grace is relational by nature. At the heart of our Christian faith is the relationship of love built on God’s delight in us and our response in gratitude. Grace is God’s gracious invitation to, and our thankful acceptance of, his many and varied gifts of love.[7]

Ubi caritas, Deus est!: Where there is love, there is God! There is nothing that anyone can do to switch off God’s loving of us. Grace is what is received from the God who loves. That’s why grace is always unmerited: no one deserves or earns the entirely free gift of God’s love. You don't need to do anything to receive grace, it is already there to be received. As St Paul said: “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rm 8.37-39)

This reality is captured beautifully in a bronze panel depicting the crucifixion on the Holy Door at St Peter’s Basilica. There is Jesus on the cross along with the two criminals executed with him. (Lk 23.32-43) Unusually, the artist has positioned the crosses of the two men directly under the outstretched arms of Jesus. Consequently, while Jesus gazes intently at the so-called ‘good thief’, nonetheless the saving blood dripping from his hands falls onto the heads of both men. The message is clear: all of us come under the outstretched arms of Jesus; all of us – good and bad alike – come under his love. There is nothing we can do to switch off God's offer to dwell within us.

This means that everyone – Christian or otherwise – has been created to share in the gift of grace, and we do so by our participation in the gift of love. God is dwelling in us no matter what. Grace is recognizable wherever love is present. Grace is lost whenever love is obscured. It is us, therefore, and not God, who determine whether or not to live within this realm of love (in a state of grace). It is us, not God, who draw near to grace through love or move further away from grace through sin. To turn our back on grace is to turn away from God. Conversely, to (re)turn our faces to love is to (re)turn our lives to the operation of grace within them.

The more we love, the more we grow in grace. Jesus experienced precisely this aspect of grace as he grew from boyhood to manhood: “And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favour [Gk: chariti] with God and man.” (Lk 2.52) Yet, we can’t give something that is not already ours to give. Not even Jesus could do that. So, when we think of grace as the horizon of love, then we need to think of love as already dwelling within us. So, even our growth in grace – our living more and more in a state of giving and receiving love – is itself dependent on our having already received the grace needed. God is love, and in him will we find our home.

In the end, grace simply acknowledges that all is from God, all is in God, all is under God. As St Ignatius of Loyola prayed:

Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty,
my memory, my understanding,
and my entire will,
All I have and call my own.

You have given all to me.
To you, Lord, I return it.

Everything is yours; do with it what you will.
Give me only your love and your grace,
that is enough for me.[8]

How’s the communication going?

A favour cannot be imposed on someone, it can only be offered; a gift cannot be taken from someone, it can only be received. But good giving and good receiving requires good communicating. The divine communion of the Blessed Trinity shows us the way to do this: God reveals himself in the self-communicating offer (Father) and reception (Son) of love (Holy Spirit). This self-communicating life of God is then given to us as the gift of grace. All that I am – anything  that is good and loving and noble in me – comes via God’s self-communication.

If we were looking for an analogy of how this divine communication operates, then marriage is an excellent example. When married couples get on with their daily task of offering and receiving those little acts of love and kind-heartedness, they are actually modelling the inner workings of grace. This ‘ebb and flow’ of love between a couple is usually a very ordinary thing, and only occasionally is it obvious. Yet, it is precisely through their daily acts of love that a married couple grow in their relationship. It should not be a surprise that the relationship between Jesus and his Church, and more generally the relationship of God with his people, is expressed in the language of marriage. Grace has a nuptial meaning.

But just as a marriage will flounder if communication fails, so too with grace. Grace only flourishes when there is good communication between the giver and receiver. This is why God is all grace: the communication between the three Persons of the Trinity couldn’t be better! But this is certainly not the case with us. We can be poor communicators of love, and as a result grace can quickly dry up. It is not because of a lack on God’s part: his self-communication remains as crystal clear as it has been from the beginning. No, it is we receivers of God’s love who are often the poor communicators.

So, what can we do? Pray, of course! Prayer is the means that God has given us to communicate in love with him. Thankfully, we have some marvellous gifts of prayer readily at our disposal: the Word of God in Holy Scripture; the Sacraments, especially Reconciliation and the Eucharist; the great traditions of prayer; the Rosary. It doesn’t matter what style of prayer we adopt, nor does it matter what words we use (in fact, words can get in the way!), so long as it is God we are communicating with. Grace creates the power to transform our crazy, mixed-up world when the channels of loving communication are allowed to open wide.

All you need is (a Year of) Grace.

“God never gives less than himself,” St Augustine once said. When all is said and done, that’s about as good a definition of grace that you’ll ever need. As we hear more about the upcoming Year of Grace – commencing on Pentecost, that great Day of the outpouring of grace – we will have many opportunities to learn more about the operation of grace in our lives. But right now, and into the future, all that is really needed to make any year a Year of Grace is an open heart. The Lord will do the rest.

  

Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful, and enkindle in them the fire of your love.

---

[1] This is not meant to be a theological or catechetical aid on the nature of grace; although I hope it will assist in understanding the place of grace in Christian faith. This pamphlet is what the title says: a personal reflection on grace. Nonetheless, at various points I have included references to the recently published YouCat (English): Youth Catechism of the Catholic Church (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2010), which provide simple definitions for some of the words and phrases commonly used about grace in the Catholic Church.

[2] www.kidspot.com.au

[3] The English poet and Church of England minister John Newton wrote the words for the hymn Amazing Grace in 1779.

[4] This is the evocative title given to Mary in a traditional Basque carol from the 14/15^th century, known to us today as ‘The Angel Gabriel from Heaven Came’.

[5] YouCat gives a lovely definition of Grace: “By grace we mean God’s free, loving gift to us, his helping goodness, the vitality that comes from him… Grace is everything God grants us, without our deserving it in the least. (§338)

[6] YouCat has this to say about the Trinitarian reality of grace: “God’s grace brings us into the inner life of the Holy Trinity, into the exchange of love between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It makes us capable of living in God’s love and of acting on the basis of this love.” (§339)

[7] While grace is simply and always God’s communication of himself to us, over the years the Church has come to recognize that there are various ways in which God has made the gift of his grace available to us. YouCat puts it this way: “Grace is infused in us from above and cannot be explained in terms of natural causes [=supernatural grace]. It makes us – especially through baptism – children of God and heirs of heaven [=sanctifying grace; state of grace]. It bestows on us a permanent disposition to do good [=habitual grace]. Grace helps us to know, to will, and to do everything that leads us to what is good, to God, and to heaven [=actual graces]. Grace comes about in a special way in the sacraments [=sacramental grace]. Grace is manifested also in special gifts of grace that are granted to individual Christians [=charisms] or in special powers that are promised to those in the state of marriage, the ordained state, or the religious state [=graces of state].” (§339)

[8] The ‘Suscipe Prayer’ comes from St Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercises.