The book by Cardinal Manning, sitting here on the table in the coffee shop, is fantastic. I can hardly decided what to highlight.
Three small points:
One, all people are given enough grace for salvation.
Two, there are, (I have written on this before, under "grace" tag), three types of grace. Preventing grace is "God going before us by His operations in every good thing we do."
In fact, preventing grace is why we were baptized in the first place. God thought of us from all eternity, planning our baptisms and our entries into grace.
The second type of grace is cooperating grace, which is not merely leading but helping grace. This grace strengthens us.
The third type is that which makes us perfect. This grace "accomplishes and crowns the work of God in us."
Imagine Divine Providence, God from all time thinking of each one of us, seeing us in sanctifying grace, desiring that we persevere in baptismal innocence, as do so many of the saints.
Each one of us is the object of God's special love. Faith, hope and charity spring from God's graces in us.
As Manning writes, "God is both the author and the perfecter of our salvation" However, our will is "actively at work in it from the beginning to the end." The Cardinal reminds us that there is only one grace in which our wills are not operative, and that is the grace of baptism.
God begins grace in us, as He does our natural existence. Manning notes, "It was the love of God which willed to create us; and His power following His will called us into existence out of the boundless multitude of possible creatures, leaving more than the mind of man can imagine non-existent still. This wonderful work of God's love to us, calling us into existence, was a preventing grace of His sovereign love, wisdom, and goodness towards us."
Stuff for meditation, indeed.
to be continued...
