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I don't normally do much with the
responses I get to my journal entries. I treasure these as a
wonderful, funny, provocative, infuriating, private horde of
backtalk. But yesterday was interesting. I received three that
made me think a bit because they were each so unique.
As you may recall, the question was
"What are the chief effects of sanctifying grace?"
(This was a bit of retro-whimsy on my part.) My three respondents
follow:
1. What? It depends on whom you read?
Thomas, Scotus, Ockham, Gabriel Biel, Suarez, De Soto, Petau
and Bellarmine, for example, all have somewhat different ideas
as to what are the effects of sanctifying grace. In fact,
they all have different ideas as to exactly what sanctifying
grace "is." And that, perhaps, is the more pressing
question: what is it? Or even: is it? Recall that Luther
absolutely detested the concept!
2. I think the chief effect of sanctifying
grace is that one becomes gracious, and therefore troubles to
understand all the others, those whose souls are hooded lamps
and those whose hearts are running sores among all the throng.
3. Is this a trick question from the Baltimore
Cathecism?
None of these were signed, but the
authors are not too much in the shadows. The first comes from
my very own personal theologian; the second, I suspect, reflects
the great wise heart of a poet, author of "Elvis
Redemptor". The third, however, is a little tougher
because there are so many good Catholic kids out there. This
one errs a bit, as any good Irish Catholic kid would, since there
are no trick questions in the Baltimore Catechism. (Oh, how I
once wished that there were.) Listen:
The chief effects of
sanctifying grace are:
first, it makes us holy and pleasing to God;
second, it makes us adopted children of God;
third, it makes us temples of the Holy Ghost;
fourth, it gives us the right to heaven.
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Nope, no trick questions,
just certain simple answers. Trick questions require a sense
of humor or irony (however perverse it may be). The Baltimore
Catechism convinced me that everything was serious and simple
- and turned me almost forever off that big Maryland city, until
John Waters, Barry Levinson and Randy Newman showed up.
I like the second
best. I aspire to that kind of understanding, desire that kind
of grace. I used to have some patience for theological hair-splitting.
My friend of the first reply seems to be hinting at a similar
kind of discomfort, pointing to the historical complexity and
chaos of definition behind the question. Some of us never grew
past the surface of that religious language and tossed it out
as we grew, because the concepts had not grown with us, had not
proven useful in the course of a day.
What do I know? God's
grace gets me up in the morning and lays me down at night, knocks
me around throughout the day and lets me know and feel whatever
I manage to know and feel. God's grace in every breath, in light
and dark.
Today was judgement
day. I spent it finalizing first semester grades. Nothing to
write home about . . . at least not now.
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