Why Prayers Are Not Answered

Many months ago, I wrote, in response to a reader's question on the efficacy of prayer, that the more one becomes holy and pure in heart, the more efficacious one's prayers become.

Thus, the saints in heaven can answer our prayers, according to God's Will, as they have merited eternal life and live in holiness and grace.

St. Catherine of Siena, a favorite on this blog, wrote in her Dialogue that the prayers for the evil and sinners in the world are not answered because those who are praying have not fulfilled the necessary steps to find holiness.

These steps form a little summary of the entire perfection series, but these are worth repeating in the context of the growing evil which is surrounding all of us.

First step: One must ask for self-knowledge, and the grace to see one's sins, imperfections and predominant fault. Only with self-knowledge can one be in the truly humble place before God in presenting prayers to Him.

Second step: Knowledge of God demands that we seek His Face, seek Him daily and answer His call to find Him in the desert of the Dark Night of both the senses and the spirit. True reparation follows this cleansing of the soul, mind, heart and body.

Here are a few selections from her work to underline these points:

Man is placed above all creatures, and not beneath them, and he cannot be satisfied or content except in something greater than himself. Greater than himself there is nothing but Myself, the Eternal God. Therefore I alone can satisfy him, and, because he is deprived of this satisfaction by his guilt, he remains in continual torment and pain. Weeping follows pain, and when he begins to weep, the wind strikes the tree of self-love, which he has made the principle of all his being.

...

So, that soul, wishing to know and follow the truth more manfully, and lifting her desires first for herself -- for she considered that a soul could not be of use, whether in doctrine, example, or prayer, to her neighbor, if she did not first profit herself, that is, if she did not acquire virtue in herself -- addressed four requests to the Supreme and Eternal Father. The first was for herself; the second for the reformation of the Holy Church; the third a general prayer for the whole world, and in particular for the peace of Christians who rebel, with much lewdness and persecution, against the Holy Church; in the fourth and last, she besought the Divine Providence to provide for things in general, and in particular, for a certain case with which she was concerned.

...

How the desire of this soul grew when God showed her the neediness of the world. This desire was great and continuous, but grew much more, when the First Truth showed her the neediness of the world, and in what a tempest of offense against God it lay. And she had understood this the better from a letter, which she had received from the spiritual Father of her soul, in which he explained to her the penalties and intolerable dolor caused by offenses against God, and the loss of souls, and the persecutions of Holy Church. All this lighted the fire of her holy desire with grief for the offenses, and with the joy of the lively hope, with which she waited for God to provide against such great evils. And, since the soul seems, in such communion, sweetly to bind herself fast within herself and with God, and knows better His truth, inasmuch as the soul is then in God, and God in the soul, as the fish is in the sea, and the sea in the fish, she desired the arrival of the morning (for the morrow was a feast of Mary) in order to hear Mass. And, when the morning came, and the hour of the Mass, she sought with anxious desire her accustomed place; and, with a great knowledge of herself, being ashamed of her own imperfection, appearing to herself to be the cause of all the evil that was happening throughout the world, conceiving a hatred and displeasure against herself, and a feeling of holy justice, with which knowledge, hatred, and justice, she purified the stains which seemed to her to cover her guilty soul, she said: "O Eternal Father, I accuse myself before You, in order that You may punish me for my sins in this finite life, and, inasmuch as my sins are the cause of the sufferings which my neighbor must endure, I implore You, in Your kindness, to punish them in my person."

...

Then, the Eternal Truth seized and drew more strongly to Himself her desire, doing as He did in the Old Testament, for when the sacrifice was offered to God, a fire descended and drew to Him the sacrifice that was acceptable to Him; so did the sweet Truth to that soul, in sending down the fire of the clemency of the Holy Spirit, seizing the sacrifice of desire that she made of herself, saying: "Do you not know, dear daughter, that all the sufferings, which the soul endures, or can endure, in this life, are insufficient to punish one smallest fault, because the offense, being done to Me, who am the Infinite Good, calls for an infinite satisfaction? However, I wish that you should know, that not all the pains that are given to men in this life are given as punishments, but as corrections, in order to chastise a son when he offends; though it is true that both the guilt and the penalty can be expiated by the desire of the soul, that is, by true contrition, not through the finite pain endured, but through the infinite desire; because God, who is infinite, wishes for infinite love and infinite grief. Infinite grief I wish from My creature in two ways: in one way, through her sorrow for her own sins, which she has committed against Me her Creator; in the other way, through her sorrow for the sins which she sees her neighbors commit against Me. Of such as these, inasmuch as they have infinite desire, that is, are joined to Me by an affection of love, and therefore grieve when they offend Me, or 16 see Me offended, their every pain, whether spiritual or corporeal, from wherever it may come, receives infinite merit, and satisfies for a guilt which deserved an infinite penalty, although their works are finite and done in finite time; but, inasmuch as they possess the virtue of desire, and sustain their suffering with desire, and contrition, and infinite displeasure against their guilt, their pain is held worthy. Paul explained this when he said: If I had the tongues of angels, and if I knew the things of the future and gave my body to be burned, and have not love, it would be worth nothing to me. The glorious Apostle thus shows that finite works are not valid, either as punishment or recompense, without the condiment of the affection of love.

Third step: Only when the soul is immersed in the love of God are prayers truly answered in power and according to His Will.

"I have shown you, dearest daughter, that the guilt is not punished in this finite time by any pain which is sustained purely as such. And I say, that the guilt is punished by the pain which is endured through the desire, love, and contrition of the heart; not by virtue of the pain, but by virtue of the desire of the soul; inasmuch as desire and every virtue is of value, and has life in itself, through Christ crucified, My only begotten Son, in so far as the soul has drawn her love from Him, and virtuously follows His virtues, that is, His Footprints. In this way, and in no other, are virtues of value, and in this way, pains satisfy for the fault, by the sweet and intimate love acquired in the knowledge of My goodness, and in the bitterness and contrition of heart acquired by knowledge of one's self and one's own thoughts. And this knowledge generates a hatred and displeasure against sin, and against the soul's own sensuality, through which, she deems herself worthy of pains and unworthy of reward." The sweet Truth continued: "See how, by contrition of the heart, together with love, with true patience, and with true humility, deeming themselves worthy of pain and unworthy of reward, such souls endure the patient humility in which consists the above-mentioned satisfaction. You ask me, then, for pains, so that I may receive satisfaction for the offenses, which are done against Me by My Creatures, and you further ask the will to know and love Me, who am the Supreme Truth. Wherefore I reply that this is the way, if you will arrive at a perfect knowledge and enjoyment of Me, the Eternal Truth, that you should never go outside the knowledge of yourself, and, by humbling yourself in the valley of humility, you will know Me and yourself, from which knowledge you will draw all that is necessary. No virtue, my daughter, can have life in itself except through charity, and humility, which is the foster-mother and nurse of charity. In self-knowledge, then, you will humble yourself, seeing that, in yourself, you do not even exist; for your very being, as you will learn, is derived from Me, since I have loved both you and others before you were in existence; and that, through the ineffable love which I had for you, wishing to re-create you to Grace, I have washed you, and re-created you in the Blood of My only-begotten Son, spilt with so great a fire of love. This Blood teaches the truth to him, who, by self-knowledge, dissipates the cloud of self-love, and in no other way can he learn. Then the soul will inflame herself in this knowledge of Me with an 17 ineffable love, through which love she continues in constant pain; not, however, a pain which afflicts or dries up the soul, but one which rather fattens her; for since she has known My truth, and her own faults, and the ingratitude of men, she endures intolerable suffering, grieving because she loves Me; for, if she did not love Me, she would not be obliged to do so; whence it follows immediately, that it is right for you, and My other servants who have learnt My truth in this way, to sustain, even unto death, many tribulations and injuries and insults in word and deed, for the glory and praise of My Name; thus will you endure and suffer pains. Do you, therefore, and My other servants, carry yourselves with true patience, with grief for your sins, and with love of virtue for the glory and praise of My Name. If you act thus, I will satisfy for your sins, and for those of My other servants, inasmuch as the pains which you will endure will be sufficient, through the virtue of love, for satisfaction and reward, both in you and in others. In yourself you will receive the fruit of life, when the stains of your ignorance are effaced, and I shall not remember that you ever offended Me. In others I will satisfy through the love and affection which you have to Me, and I will give to them according to the disposition with which they will receive My gifts. In particular, to those who dispose themselves, humbly and with reverence, to receive the doctrine of My servants, will I remit both guilt and penalty, since they will thus come to true knowledge and contrition for their sins. So that, by means of prayer, and their desire of serving Me, they receive the fruit of grace, receiving it humbly in greater or less degree, according to the extent of their exercise of virtue and grace in general. I say then, that, through your desires, they will receive remission for their sins. 

The more I pray, the more I realize how unworthy my prayers are and how far I am from meriting good for myself and others. The sufferings endured by me are only good insofar as these are united in the love of God for myself and for others.

Prayers are not answered unless a person has been stripped of ego and the selfishness of certain desires not in keeping with God's Will.

People ask me to pray for them daily, and I do. Yesterday, on my "down day",  I could get much more prayers said, more meditation and more affective contemplation done in the busy weeks prior. I thank God that I was ill so that I could be in His Presence as in the days before I came here to this little box room.

The purgation demanded by God must come before one experiences truly efficacious prayer. Here is St. Catherine again, from the words of God.

But I do not, in general, grant to these others, for whom they pray, satisfaction for the penalty due to them, but, only for their guilt, since they are not disposed, on their side, to receive, with perfect love, My love, and that of My servants. They do not receive their grief with bitterness, and perfect contrition for the sins they have committed, but with imperfect love and contrition, wherefore they have not, as others, remission of the penalty, but only of the guilt; because such complete satisfaction 18 requires proper dispositions on both sides, both in him that gives and him that receives. Wherefore, since they are imperfect, they receive imperfectly the perfection of the desires of those who offer them to Me, for their sakes, with suffering; and, inasmuch as I told you that they do receive remission, this is indeed the truth, that, by that way which I have told you, that is, by the light of conscience, and by other things, satisfaction is made for their guilt; for, beginning to learn, they vomit forth the corruption of their sins, and so receive the gift of grace. "These are they who are in a state of ordinary charity, wherefore, if they have trouble, they receive it in the guise of correction, and do not resist over much the clemency of the Holy Spirit, but, coming out of their sin, they receive the life of grace. But if, like fools, they are ungrateful, and ignore Me and the labors of My servants done for them, that which was given them, through mercy, turns to their own ruin and judgment, not through defect of mercy, nor through defect of him who implored the mercy for the ingrate, but solely through the man's own wretchedness and hardness, with which, with the hands of his free will, he has covered his heart, as it were, with a diamond, which, if it be not broken by the Blood, can in no way be broken. And yet, I say to you, that, in spite of his hardness of heart, he can use his free will while he has time, praying for the Blood of My Son, and let him with his own hand apply It to the diamond over his heart and shiver it, and he will receive the imprint of the Blood which has been paid for him. But, if he delays until the time be past, he has no remedy, because he has not used the dowry which I gave him, giving him memory so as to remember My benefits, intellect, so as to see and know the truth, affection, so that he should love Me, the Eternal Truth, whom he would have known through the use of his intellect. This is the dowry which I have given you all, and which ought to render fruit to Me, the Father; but, if a man barters and sells it to the devil, the devil, if he choose, has a right to seize on everything that he has acquired in this life. And, filling his memory with the delights of sin, and with the recollection of shameful pride, avarice, self-love, hatred, and unkindness to his neighbors (being also a persecutor of My servants), with these miseries, he has obscured his intellect by his disordinate will. Let such as these receive the eternal pains, with their horrible stench, inasmuch as they have not satisfied for their sins with contrition and displeasure of their guilt. Now, therefore, you have understood how suffering satisfies for guilt by perfect contrition, not through the finite pain; and such as have this contrition in perfection satisfy not only for the guilt, but also for the penalty which follows the guilt, as I have already said when speaking in general; and if they satisfy for the guilt alone, that is, if, having abandoned mortal sin, they receive grace, and have not sufficient contrition and love to satisfy for the penalty also, they go to the pains of Purgatory, passing through the second and last means of satisfaction. "So you see that satisfaction is made, through the desire  of the soul united to Me, who am the Infinite Good, in greater or less degree, according to the measure of love, obtained by the desire and prayer of the recipient. Wherefore, with that very same measure with which a man measures to Me, do he receive in himself the measure of My goodness. Labor, therefore, to increase the fire of your desire, and let not a moment pass without crying to Me with humble voice, or without continual prayers before Me for your neighbors. I say this to you and to the father of your soul, whom I have given you on earth. Bear yourselves with manful courage, and make yourselves dead to all your own sensuality.

Fourth step: One must pray in the Will of God. One prays for God's Perfect Will to be done, and not merely seeking one's or another's own will. Diligent prayer forms our will to God's Will. Then, things happen.

The more we have been purified, the more will be the efficacy of our prayers

to be continued...

Protestant Errors on Purgatory and the Last Judgment-an aside

The Protestant Error http://www.catholictreasury.info/books/everlasting_life/ev21.php

The doctrine of purgatory was denied by the Albigenses, the Hussites, and the Protestants. [339] Luther began, in 1517, by denying the value of indulgences, saying that they had no value before God for the remission of the punishment due to our sins. [340] Then he went on 
to maintain that purgatory cannot be proved by Holy Scripture; that the souls in purgatory are not sure of their salvation; that we cannot prove the impossibility of merit in purgatory; that the souls in purgatory may sin by attempting to escape the sufferings they are undergoing.

Later on, Luther reached the doctrinal root of all his negations, namely, justification by faith alone. Then he affirmed the uselessness of good works and hence the uselessness of purgatory. Supported by popular favor, he became more and more audacious. In 1524 he published his book on the abrogation of Mass. In this work he says that the denial of purgatory is not an error.

Finally, in 1530, he denied absolutely any necessity of satisfaction for our sins. To uphold this, he said, would be an injury to Christ, who has satisfied superabundantly for all sin. For the same reason he denied that the Mass is a true sacrifice, particularly a propitiatory sacrifice. We have here the radical denial of a life of reparation, as if the sufferings of the saints for the expiation of sin would be an injury to the Redeemer.

Now the first and universal cause does not exclude second causes, but grants them the dignity of causality, somewhat like a sculptor who should make statues which live. Thus the satisfactory merits of Christ do not exclude our own, but rather create them. Christ causes us to work with Him and in Him. St. Paul said: "Bear ye one another's burdens, and so you shall fulfill the law of Christ." [341] Again: "I now rejoice in my sufferings for you and fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ, in my flesh, for His body, which is the Church." Certainly nothing was lacking to the sufferings of Christ in themselves, but they lacked fulfillment in our own flesh.

Calvin [342] and Zwingli [343] followed Luther in denying indulgences, in denying the sacrifice of the Mass, and purgatory.

Protestants of the present day have separated from their masters on this subject. Many of them admit an intermediate state between hell and heaven. They will not call it purgatory, but do say that the souls there can still merit and satisfy. Some hold that the sufferings of hell are not eternal. Now this temporary hell does not at all resemble the purgatory taught by the Catholic Church, according to which all souls in purgatory are in the state of grace and can no longer sin.

This is but one more example of the variations and contradictions to be found among Protestant Churches.

The chief Catholic theologians who wrote against this Protestant error are Cajetan, Sylvester Ferrariensis, St. John Fisher, John Eck, and St. Robert Bellarmine. St. John Fisher speaks thus to the Lutherans: "In suppressing the sacrifice of the Mass you have excluded the sun which illumines and warms each day of our life, and makes its influence felt even in purgatory."

The Church condemned this Protestant error. The Council of Trent declares: "If anyone says that the man who has repented and received the grace of justification is forgiven and released from obligation to eternal punishment, in such fashion that he no longer has any obligation to temporal punishment, whether in this world or in purgatory, before he can be given entrance into heaven: let him be anathema." [344] 

In the fourteenth chapter, which corresponds to this cannon, the Council affirms the necessity of satisfaction for sins committed after baptism: satisfaction in the form of fasting, of almsgiving, of prayer, and of other exercises of the spiritual life. These satisfactions are not meant for the eternal punishment, which was remitted by the sacrament of penance or by the desire of the sacrament, but for the remission of temporal punishment, which is not always remitted entirely, as it is in baptism. [345] The Council quotes these words of Scripture: "Be mindful therefore from whence thou art fallen, and do penance and do the first works." [346] "For the sorrow that is according to God worketh penance." [347] "Do penance." [348] "Bring forth therefore fruit worthy of penance." [349] And if this reparation, this satisfaction, has not been paid in this world, the soul will have to undergo the satisfactorial punishment of purgatory.

And I add this on choosing to take one's purgatory on earth, rather than after the particular judgment.

Blessed are those who take their purgatory on earth, by generous acceptance of daily trials. The multiple sacrifices of daily life purify and perfect their love, and by this love they will be judged.

Love itself has many degrees. St. Peter seemed to make an act of perfect love when he protested to Jesus his readiness to die. But mingled with his act was presumption. To purify him from this presumption, Providence permitted the threefold denial, whence he came forth more humble, less trustful in himself, more trustful in God, until pure love led him to martyrdom and answered his prayer to be crucified head downward.

How do we attain pure love? Saudreau answers: "Love is not an effect of headwork, not a pushing forward of will to give to it greater force. It is the result of accepting generously all sacrifices, in accepting with a loving heart all trials." [130] 
The Lord augments the infused virtue of charity, the accepting soul prepares itself for the particular judgment, where it will find in Jesus rather a friend than a judge.

While the particular judgment, then, settles for each soul its place in eternity, the general judgment still remains necessary. Man is not a mere individual person, but also a member of human society, on which he has had an influence, good or bad, of longer or shorter duration. 

And although most Protestants believe in the Last Judgment, some have a wrong idea about it because some of their heroes are actually great evil men.

Here is G-L again:

The Fathers, both Latin and Greek, not only teach this dogma explicitly, but most vividly describe the last judgment. Let it suffice to cite St. Augustine: "No one denies, or puts in doubt, that Jesus Christ, as the Scriptures have announced, will pronounce the last judgment." [157] 

...

Reasons for the Last Judgment

St. Thomas [167] explains these reasons. First, dead men live in the memory of men on earth and are often judged contrary to truth. Spirits, strong and false, like Spinoza, Kant, and Hegel, are judged as if they were great philosophers. False prophets and heresiarchs, such as Luther and Calvin, are considered by many to be masters of religious thought, whereas great saints and doctors are profoundly ignored.

Judgment Day will show how much value is to be assigned to certain histories of philosophies, to many studies on the origins of Christianity, written in a spirit absolutely rationalistic. It will show how their perpetual variations and contradictions come from their fundamental error, the negation of the supernatural. It will manifest all lying propaganda. It will unmask hypocrites who enslaved religion instead of serving religion. Universal history will no longer be seen as a mere horizontal line of time, passing from the past to the future, but as a vertical line which attaches each event to the unique moment of an immovable eternity. The secrets of the hearts will be revealed. [168] The Pharisees, Caiphas, Pilate, will be judged definitively. Truth will conquer all these lies. It is clear that, if God exists, truth must be the absolutely last word.

Further, the dead have had imitators, in good or in evil. Evil is easier to imitate. Truth and justice must be vindicated. "Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after justice, for they shall have their fill."

Lastly, the effects of men's actions last long after their death. Arius and other heresiarchs troubled souls for some centuries, whereas, on the contrary, the teaching of the apostles will exercise its influence to the end of the world. Only a final and infallible judgment of God is here sufficient, and this cannot take place until the end of time.

And against Calvin and the other prosperity Gospel preachers...

Blessed those who, like Bernadette of Lourdes, hear this word: "I promise you happiness, not in this life, but in the next." This was a special revelation. She was predestined, but she would have great crosses on earth. All genuine Christian lives are marked with the cross. Crosses well borne are a sign of predestination, says St. Thomas. A rain of afflictions is better than a rain of diamonds. This truth we shall see clearly after death. [173] Providence will then appear absolutely irreproachable in all its way

Misunderstandings on Foundations-Something Out of Nothing

Over the centuries, women and men who have founded communities or orders, had a place. St. Francis was allowed to take San. Damiano, when he was still a lay person, which he was for many long years until his order was established. He was alone for a long time as well.

Marie Adele Garnier, the foundress of Tyburn, was given a house by a benefactor when she only had herself and one other young person adoring Christ in the nearby church in Paris. Again, she was a lay person for a relatively long while before she was allowed to make vows. Many years passed before she applied for Benedictine recognition, under the guidance of Dom Marmion. The Church has an established, conservative order of this process. One does the work of God first, before having an order blossom out of that work.

A friend of mine in Europe set up an Association of the Faithful, approved by Rome, for men to pray, work, and study. His wealthy parents bought him the extensive property. He is, individually, poor. He lives a simple lifestyle within his new order.  I know three religious hermits who were given places to live. They are individuals, not a community. Without the benefactors, they could not have become hermits. The three live according to God's call and the fruit of their work is obvious to those who go to them for spiritual direction. I have not shared this on this blog, but I do spiritual direction and never charge. So, it should be. Without two benefactors, I would not have seen my son at Christmas, a son I had not seen in 15 months.

Some foundresses were wealthy and used their own money. Some were poor and were given places by generous benefactors who only wanted daily prayers said for their souls.

St. Etheldreda, being a princess with her own land, was abbess over a double monastery of men and women, the land of which included parts of Ely and Ely Place in London. Not too many wealthy people start orders or houses of prayer in the 21st Century. Not too many princesses follow Christ in the radical Gospel.

Several modern stigmatists lived in small cabins, and their local communities helped them survive, washing their clothes, taking turns sitting with them, and so on. Some were very poor and individuals, not in communities. Only one 20th century stigmatist actually has an lay order started after her--Marthe Robin. These extraordinarily holy people were not left alone. But, one does not have to earn such support. God is in charge.

People do not understand Divine Providence. I suggest they read the series I did on this subject. Just use tags or the search bar.

Communities or gatherings of people need a place. We are not disembodied spirits. Mary was given a house by Joseph and later, by John. The only saint I know who did not have a permanent home, outside of the Fools for Christ of Russia, is St. Benedict Labre. He did not want to set up a house of Adoration, a place for Jesus to be in the neighborhood.

The idea that members of a community or a future order can exist without benefactors seems to be a new idea. Even Father Z, a lone priest on line, has hundreds of benefactors. If I did not have someone paying for this Internet connection, I would not be blogging. God bless this benefactor, and those who sent me bedding and towels, so that I can be warm, pray and blog. God bless the person who is sending me a gift cert so I can buy food. This is the way of Catholics supporting those in need. It has always been so until the lies of socialism and the middle-class Calvinism crept into the minds of some Catholics. The idea of the "worthy poor" did not come out of Catholicism, but out of Victorian England. None of us are worthy of anything, and those who have are not more worthy than those who do not have.

Such members of the Church, sadly, have fallen into middle-class ideas of religion which do not take into account giving without return. These are new days, and the coming tribulation means secret places for God to rest and even priests to hide. The Catholics will be marginalized, fined, and those enemies of God will try, as in England years ago, to destroy the Church in America. We need places "under the radar" as one of my dear friends told me last night.

The old days are very quickly passing away, as most of the young people I speak with and write to know. They can see the sea-change. Things will get worse very quickly and the days of setting up anything for God will be ended. We need to act now.

I suggest people read the foundations of orders and shrines, as I have for a long time. Benefactors helped almost all the new foundations, begun mostly by lay people, who then moved to new orders created by them. Most of the old orders have become corrupted. I know Carmelites and their third order members who believe in women priests and even contraception. New ideas and new disciplines are necessary. Adoration chapels should dot the entire landscape of America and Europe. These are needed in these times.

Lay communities morph into orders, if that is God's Will.

God does not follow business plans, but has His Own Way of creating something out of nothing, so that no one can take credit for His Plans. Such is the way of humility. Without humility, people think it is their work and not God's and sometimes, He uses the poorest of the poor in order to show forth His Glory. Marie Adele Garnier had bad health, and was a governess before she was called to adore Christ in the Eucharist. She was poor. Now, her order has ten houses across the globe. This all took time, and benefactors.

I am living in a diocese now where the bishop most likely would be open to such a project. He has done this before. Not all bishops would be open, but I am open to this happening elsewhere, as long as the local bishop approves. That is another consideration. One sets up a discipline for Adoration and presents it to a bishop. Only he can approve private Adoration in a house.

30 Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. 31 Do to others as you would have them do to you.

32 "If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. 34 And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. 35 But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Luke 6:30-35

On Mercy and Justice Again....forced to go to God

We cannot take mercy for granted, as that is the sin of presumption. And, until one goes through the Dark Night, one vacillates between the sins of presumption and despair. One learns what justice really is and what mercy really is.

Mercy is above justice, not in place of...there seems to be confusion as to God's justice being something which is contrary to mercy. It is not, The two, true Attributes go hand in hand.

Summa, First Part, Question 21. The justice and mercy of God

from Thomas Aquinas, a few thoughts...

Now as works of art are related to art, so are works of justice related to the law with which they accord. Therefore God's justice, which establishes things in the order conformable to the rule of His wisdom, which is thelaw of His justice, is suitably called truth. Thus we also in human affairs speak of the truth of justice.

Justice, as to the law that governs, resides in the reason or intellect; but as to the command whereby our actions are governed according to the law, it resides in the will.

The truth of which the Philosopher is speaking in this passage, is that virtue whereby a man shows himself in word and deed such as he really is. Thus it consists in the conformity of the sign with the thing signified; and not in that of the effect with its cause and rule: as has been said regarding the truth of justice.

Justice and mercy appear in the punishment of the just in this world, since by afflictions lesser faults are cleansed in them, and they are the more raised up from earthly affections to God. As to this Gregory says (Moral. xxvi, 9): "The evils that press on us in this world force us to go to God."

Trusting in Divine Providence

Some people think that trusting in Divine Providence automatically means that God will bless them with prosperity and peace. This is the false message of the so-called "prosperity Gospel" which is heresy.

To trust in Divine Providence basically means not pretending that one is God. One gives ones' entire life over to God and lets Him direct this life. This abandonment to Divine Providence does not guarantee a life of ease, although one may have great peace in the midst of troubles.

Many things must be attributed to Divine Providence, such as serious illnesses, like cancer, or loss of job, status, even home.

To stand back from the evil of the moment and say, "Jesus, I trust in Thee" is the ultimate act of love. If we trust God, we know we are loving God. Those who play God, neither love or trust Him.

The lives of the saints reveals little ease and comfort. In fact, an examination of the lives of the saints points us always in the direction of deep suffering.

One may ask why allows suffering. The answers vary. But, the main reason suffering is allowed has to do with the fact that God see individuals' free wills as sacred.

He also used suffering for our purification, and for intercessory prayer. It can also be for reparation of one's own sins and the sins of others.

However, in my opinion, the main reason for suffering is that one is invited to share in the Passion of Christ.

When one loves Christ, one wants to be with Him always, even at the foot of, or bearing the Cross.

Trusting simply means using the gift of faith given in baptism.

Hard? Yes, Impossible? No.

BBS.

The Real Deal Two

REALITY—A Synthesis Of Thomistic Thought by Garrigou-Lagrange

http://www.thesumma.info/reality/reality60.php

The Divine Will, Antecedent And Consequent

"The will," says St. Thomas, [1454] "is related to things as they are in themselves, with all their particular circumstances. Hence we will a thing simply (simpliciter) when we will it with all its concrete circumstances. This will we call the consequent will. Thus it is clear that everything which God wills simpliciter comes to pass."

If, on the contrary, we will a thing in itself good, but independently of its circumstances, this will is called the antecedent will, or conditional will, since the good in question is not realized here and now. That man should live, says St. Thomas, [1455] is good. But if the man is a murderer, it is good that he be executed. Antecedently, God wills that harvests come to maturity, but He allows for some higher good, that not all harvests do in fact mature. Similarly, He wills antecedently the salvation of all men, though for some higher good, of which He alone is judge, He permits some to sin and perish.

But, since God never commands the impossible, His will and love make the observance of His commandments possible to all men, to each according to his measure. He gives to each, says St. Thomas, [1456] more than strict justice requires. It is thus that St. Thomas harmonizes God's antecedent will, of which St. John Damascene speaks, with God's omnipotence.

The Supreme Principles

Nothing comes to pass, either in heaven or on earth, unless God either brings it to pass in mercy, or then in justice permits it. This principle, taught in the universal Church, shows that there is in God a conditional and antecedent will, relative to a good which does not come to pass, the privation of which He permits in view of some higher good.

To this principle we must add another: [1457] God does not command the impossible. From these two revealed principles derives the distinction between God's efficacious consequent will and His antecedent will, which is the source of sufficient grace.

All that God wills, He does. This principle has no exception. All that God wills (purely, simply, unconditionally) comes to pass without our freedom being thereby in any way forced, because God moves that freedom sweetly and strongly, actualizing it, not destroying. He wills efficaciously that we freely consent and we do freely consent. The supreme efficacy of divine causality, says St. Thomas, [1458] extends to the free mode of our acts.

Many repeat these principles, but do not see that they contain the foundation of the distinction between the two kinds of grace, one that is self-efficacious, the other simply sufficient which man may resist, but not without divine permission.

Hence we find that in the ninth century, to terminate the long controversy with Gottschalk, the Council of Thuzey (860): at the instance of the Augustinian bishops, harmonized God's will of universal salvation with the sinner's responsibility. That Council's synodal letter [1459] contains this sentence: Whatever He has willed in heaven or on earth, God has done. For nothing comes to pass in heaven or on earth that He does not in mercy bring to pass or permits to come to pass in justice.

Since God's love is the cause of created goodness, says St. Thomas, [1460] no created thing would be better than another, if God did not give one a great good than He gives to another. This is equivalent to St. Paul's word: [1461] What hast thou that thou hast not received?

Consequences.

Christian humility rests on two dogmas, that of creation from nothing, and that of the necessity of grace for each and every salutary act. Now this same principle of God's predilection contains virtually the doctrine of gratuitous predestination, because the merits of the elect, since they are the effects of their predestination, cannot be the cause of that predestination. [1462].

Even all there is of being and action in sin must come from God, Source of all being and of all activity. [1463] As the divine will cannot indeed, either directly or indirectly, will the disorder which is in sin, so neither can divine causality produce that disorder. Disorder is outside the adequate object of God's omnipotence, more than sound is outside the object of sight. As we cannot see sound, so God cannot cause the disorder of sin. Nothing is more precise and precisive, if we may use the word, than the formal object of a power. [1464] The good and the true are not really distinct in the object, yet the intellect attains in that object only the truth, and the will only the good. In our organism, it is impossible to confuse the effects of weight with the effects of electricity, say, or of heat. Each cause produces only its own proper effect. And thus God is the cause, not of the moral disorder in sin, but only what there is in sin of being and action. No reality comes to pass, to repeat the principle, unless God has willed it, and nothing of evil unless God has permitted it. How necessary, then, it is that the theologian, after drawing conclusion from principles, should remount from conclusions to principles, thus clarifying his conclusions for those who do not see the bond that binds all consequences to the primal verities.

If, then, one of two sinners is converted, that conversion is the effect of a special mercy. And if a just man never sins mortally after his baptism, this perseverance is the effect of a still greater mercy. These simple remarks are enough to show the gratuity of predestination.

Molina, refusing to admit that grace is intrinsically self-efficacious, maintains that it is efficacious only by our consent, foreseen from eternity by scientia media. Thus we have a good which comes to pass without God having efficaciously willed it, contrary to the principle we have just laid down.

Molina does indeed attempt to defend that principle. God, having seen by scientia media that Peter, placed in such and such circumstances, would with sufficient grace be in fact converted, wills to place him in those favorable circumstances rather than in others where he would be lost. But this explanation surely reduces the absolute principle of predilection to a relative, indirect, and extrinsic principle. Grace is efficacious, not of itself and intrinsically, but only by circumstances which are extrinsic to the salutary act. With equal aid, yea with less aid, says Molina, one rises, the other perseveres in obstinacy. One who thus rises, St. Paul would say, has something he has not received.

The Mystery

Who can resist God's will? St. Paul [1465] answers this question with a hymn on the mysterious depths of God's wisdom. Why God draws this man and not that man, says St. Augustine, [1466] judge not unless you would misjudge. Predestination, says St. Thomas, [1467] cannot have the merits of the elect as cause, because these merits are the effects of predestination, which is consequently gratuitous, dependent on the divine good pleasure.

Not infrequently we meet authors who, in explaining this mystery, wish to speak more clearly than St. Paul, St. Augustine, and St. Thomas. Superficially, they may be more clear. But is not this superficial clarity incompatible with the sense of mystery? Willy-nilly, these authors return to Molina. One of them recently wrote as follows: "Here is the mystery of predestination. Since God knew from all eternity that Judas would not profit by the sufficient grace accorded to him, why did God not give to Judas, as He did to the good robber, those graces to which He knew that Judas would correspond? ".

This explanation is Molinistic, since it rests on scientia media, since it implies in God's foreknowledge a passivity, depending on the course man would take, were he put in such and such circumstances, and which he will take if in fact he is placed there. The dilemma remains: Is God's knowledge causal and determining? Or is it rather caused and determined? There is no medium.

If we follow the principle commonly received that all good comes from God's efficacious will and all evil from God's permission, then it is not sufficient to say with the author just quoted: God knew what would happen if, etc. We must rather say: God permitted the final impenitence of Judas. Had God not permitted it, it would not have come to pass and God could not have infallibly foreseen it. And God would not have permitted it, had He willed efficaciously to save Judas. But God did efficaciously will the conversion of the penitent robber, because He willed efficaciously his salvation (gratuitous predestination to glory). [1468].

The free will moved and aroused by God, says the Council of Trent, can dissent if it will. This declaration, which was prepared by Dominic Soto, a Thomist, and by many Augustinians, is not a condemnation of self-efficacious grace. Grace actualizes our liberty, but leaves intact the freedom to resist. [1469] As he who is seated retains real power to rise, so he who chooses a particular road has real power to refuse it freely. Real power to resist is one thing, actual resistance is something else. [1470].

No one, then, can be better than another unless he be loved more by God. Divine predilection is the foundation of predestination. [1471] Bannez says nothing more than does St. Thomas. [1472] Molina, more frank than some of his followers, recognized that his own doctrine is not that of St. Thomas. [1473].

As regards reprobation, it consists precisely, says St. Thomas, [1474] in God's will to permit sin (negative reprobation) and of inflicting punishment of damnation for sin (positive reprobation).

Hence it is wrong to say, as has been recently said, that permission of sin is found in the same way among the elect as it is among the reprobate. Final impenitence is never found among the elect.

Conclusion

Nothing comes to pass unless God wills it efficaciously, if it is good, or permits it if it is evil. God never commands the impossible. From these two most fundamental principles arises the distinction between efficacious grace, which is the effect of the intrinsically efficacious will of God, and sufficient grace, which is the effect of God's antecedent will, accompanied by permission of sin. The first grace gives the actual doing of salutary acts, the second gives real power for salutary acts. But—we cannot repeat it too often—sufficient grace is a blossom wherein efficacious grace is offered, yet so that, if man resists, he merits privation of the efficacious grace which, without this resistance, he would have received.

A very great mystery, certainly. God cannot be unjust, cries St. Paul. [1475] What creature can claim to have first given anything to God, so as to claim a reward? But this much is manifest in this chiaro oscuro: we are dealing here with the transcendent pre-eminence of the deity, wherein are harmonized infinite justice, infinite mercy, and supreme freedom. Final perseverance comes from infinite mercy. Final impenitence is a just punishment. The infinity of all God's attributes will be manifest only in the immediate vision of God as he is in Himself.

Let us learn, says Bossuet, [1476] to make our intelligence captive, to confess these two graces (sufficient and efficacious): one of which leaves our will without excuse before God, while the other forbids all self-glorification. Resistance to grace is an evil which comes only from ourselves. Non-resistance to grace is a good, which would not come to pass here and now, had not God from all eternity efficaciously willed it so.

Let us notice some common errors, especially in the minds of those who are just being introduced into this doctrine. It is an error to think that some receive only efficacious graces and others only those which are sufficient. All of us receive both kinds of graces. Even those in mortal sin receive from time to time efficacious graces, to make, say, an act of faith, or of hope. But often too they resist the sufficient grace which inclines them to conversion, whereas good servants of God often receive sufficient graces which they do not resist and which are followed by efficacious graces.

We should note too that there are various kinds of sufficient grace. There are first exterior graces, as, e. g.: a sermon, a good example, a proper guidance. Then interior graces, as, e. g.: that of baptism, the infused virtues and graces, which give us the proximate power to act supernaturally. Thirdly, there are actual graces, graces of illumination, which give us good thoughts, graces of attraction which incline us to salutary consent, even though consent does not follow. [1477] A grace which efficaciously produces attrition is, as regards contrition, a sufficient grace. [1478].

Sufficient grace often urges us insistently not to resist God's will, manifested to us by our superior, say, or by our director. For a year, it may be, or two years, or many years, circumstances strengthen what is demanded of us in God's name, and still we remain deceived by our selfishness, though prayers are said for us, and Masses celebrated for our intention. Notwithstanding all light and attraction that comes from these graces, we may still reach a state of hardening in sin. Behold I stand at the gate and knock.

Resistance comes from the soul alone. If resistance ceases, the warmth of grace begins, strongly and sweetly, to penetrate our coldness. The soul begins to realize that resistance is her own work, that non-resistance is itself a good that comes from the Author of all good, that it must pray for this good, as the priest prays just before his Communion at Mass: "Grant, O Lord, that I may ever cling to Thy precepts, and let me never be separated from Thee."

One who keeps the commandments sincerely is certainly better than he who, though fully able, does not keep them. He is therefore bound to special gratitude to God who has made him better. Hence our present distinction, between grace sufficient and grace efficacious, is the foundation of a gratitude intended to be eternal. The elect, as St. Augustine [1479] so often says, will sing forever the mercy of God, and will clearly see how this infinite mercy harmonizes perfectly with infinite justice and supreme freedom. [1480].

The Thomistic synthesis sets all these principles in bold relief, thereby preserving the spirit of theological science which judges all things, not precisely and primarily by their relation to man and man's freedom, but by their relation to God, the proper object of theology, to God, the source and goal of all life, natural and supernatural. Truth concerning God is the sun which illumines our minds and wills on the road that rises to eternal life, to the unmediated vision of the divine reality.

If you want the real deal.....

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REALITY—A Synthesis Of Thomistic Thought

by Garrigou-Lagrange 

CH59: EFFICACIOUS GRACE

Treating the questions of God's foreknowledge, of predestination and of grace, many Molinists, in order to denote themselves as Thomists, refer to classic Thomism under the name of "Bannesianism." Informed theologians see in this practice an element of pleasantry, even of comedy.

Our purpose here is to insist on a principle admitted by all theologians, a principle wherein Thomists see the deepest foundation of the distinction between grace sufficient and grace efficacious.

The Problem

Revelation makes it certain that many graces given by God do not produce the effect (at least the entire effect) toward which they are given, while other graces do produce this effect. Graces of the first kind are called sufficient graces. They give the power to do good, without bringing the good act itself to pass, since man resists their attraction. The existence of such graces is absolutely certain, whatever Jansenists say. Without these graces, God, contrary to His mercy and His justice, would command the impossible. Further, since without these graces sin would be inevitable, sin would no longer be sin, and could not justly be punished. Judas could have really here and now avoided his crime, as could the impenitent robber who died near our Savior.

Graces of the second kind are called efficacious. They not only give us real power to observe the precepts, but carry us on to actual observance, as in the case of the penitent robber. The existence of actual efficacious grace is affirmed, equivalently, in numerous passages of Scripture. Ezechiel [1437] says, for example: I will give you a new heart and put in you a new spirit, I will take away your heart of stone, and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My spirit in you and bring it about that you follow My commands and observe and practice My laws. Again, the Psalmist says: [1438] All that God wills, He does. The word "wills" must here be understood as meaning all that God wills, not conditionally, but absolutely. Thus He wills a man's free conversion, that of Assuerus, e. g.: at the prayer of Esther: [1439] Then God changed the wrath of the King into mildness. God's omnipotence is, in these texts, assigned as reason for the infallible efficacy of God's decree. [1440].

The Second Council of Orange, against the Semi-Pelagians, after citing many of these texts, says of the efficaciousness of grace: [1441] Whenever we do good, God, in us and with us, brings our work to pass. Hence there is a grace which not only gives real power to act right (a power which exists also in him who sins): but which produces the good act, even while, far from excluding our own free cooperation, it arouses rather this cooperation, carries us on to consent.

St. Augustine [1442] thus explains these same texts: God, by His power, most hidden and most efficacious, turns the king's heart from wrath to mildness.

The great majority of older theologians, Augustinians, Thomists, Scotists, hold that the grace called efficacious is efficacious of itself, because God wills it to be so, not because we will it to be so, by an act of consent foreseen by God. God is, not a mere spectator, but the Author of salvation. How is grace self-efficacious? Here these older authors differ. Some recur to the divine motion called premotion, some to what they call "victorious delectation," some to a kind of attraction. But, amid all differences, they agree that grace is of itself efficacious.

Molina, on the contrary, maintains that grace is efficacious extrinsically, by our consent, foreseen by scientia media. This scientia media has always been rejected by Thomists, who say that it implies a passivity in God relative to our free determinations (futuribilia, and future): and that it leads to "determination by circumstances" (since it is by knowledge of these circumstances that God would foresee what man would choose). Thus the very being and goodness of the will and salutary choice would come from man and not from God. Granted equal grace to each, says Molina, [1443] it can come to pass that one is converted, the other not. Even with a smaller aid of grace one can rise, while another with greater grace does not rise, and remains hardened.

Molina's opponents answer thus: Here we have a good, the good of a salutary act, which does not come from God, Source of all good. How then maintain the word of Jesus: [1444] Without Me you can do nothing? Or that of St. Paul: [1445] What hast thou that thou hast not received? If, with equal grace, and amid equal circumstances, one is converted and the other not, then the convert has a good which he has not received.

Molinists object: If, in order to do good, you demand, besides sufficient grace, also self-efficacious grace, does sufficient grace really and truly give you a real power to act?

It does, so Thomists reply, if it is true that real power to act is distinct from the act itself; if it is true [1446] that the architect, before he actually builds, has a real power to build, that he who is seated has a real power to rise; that he who is sleeping is not blind, but has a real power to see. Further, if the sinner would not resist sufficient grace, he would receive the efficacious grace, which is offered in the preceding sufficient grace, as fruit is offered in the blossom. If he resists he merits privation of new aid.

But does St. Thomas explicitly distinguish self-efficacious grace from that grace which gives only the power to act?He does, and often. God's aid, he says, [1447] is twofold. God gives the power, by infusing strength and grace, by which man becomes able and apt to act. But He gives further the good act itself, by interiorly moving and urging us to good... since His power, by His great good will, operates in us to will and to do. Again: [1448] Christ is the propitiation for our sins, for some efficaciously, for all sufficiently, because His blood is sufficient price for the salvation of all, but does not have efficacy except in the elect, because of impediment. Does God remedy this impediment? He does, often, but not always. And here lies the mystery. God, he says, [1449] withholds nothing that is due. And he adds: [1450] God gives to all sufficient aid to keep from sin. Again, speaking of efficacious grace: [1451] If it is given to this sinner, it is by mercy; if it is refused to another, it is by justice.

Thomists add, [1452] in explanation: Every actual grace which is self-efficacious for an imperfect act, say attrition, is sufficient for a more perfect salutary act, say contrition. This is manifestly the doctrine of St. Thomas. [1453] If man resists the grace which gives him the power to do good, he merits privation of the grace which would carry him on to actual good deed. But the saint has not merely distinguished the two graces, he has pointed out the deepest foundation for this distinction.