As is always the case with Mary, this lesson is not just about Mary. It is about us, Mary and Christ and how each of us relates to the doctrine of grace. We start with Christ, who is the source of all grace and truth and the object of our love. Mary is the vessel of grace. She is in no need of grace because she was “full of grace” and was preserved from original sin by grace. We are in need of grace and called to be a vessel of grace for others.
We must understand correctly the following three words: Grace, Faith, Works (Love/Charity) to understand what it means that Mary is “full of Grace” Why is she not full of faith or full of charity?
ACTIVITY – Grace, Faith or Works
This is a simple activity. Give everyone a card or post-it note and have them write “GRACE” on the first, “FAITH” on the second, and “WORKS” on the third. On the wall, window, or board, make three columns in which you put “FIRST”, “SECOND” and “THIRD”. Have the group put the cards or post-it notes in the order that they feel they are most important. If they feel that “FAITH” is #1, they put faith in the first column by sticking or taping their card or note on the wall, window, or board. This is a great activity for groups of 30 or more. It is good if you have everyone post their notes or cards at the same time so people don’t vote based on others opinions. After the activity, a discussion can take place in which Ephesians 2:8-10 is read, as well as why all three are necessary for salvation and what happens if any are taken out of the equation. Also, it is important that all three go in the correct order, as there is a proper hierarchy of importance, and works flow from faith, which flows from grace. If you want to take this activity a step further, you can also have cards that say “Prayer”, “Belief”, and “Life”, which correspond with Grace, Faith and Works. You can also have cards that say “Know”, “Love”, and “Serve”, which correspond with Grace, Faith and Works. In other words, we must know that grace is there and pray for it daily. We believe our faith, which is loving God, a response to the grace we received and we live out through service and good works.
Saint Paul says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from you; it is the gift of God; it is not from works, so no one may boast. For we are his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for the good works that God has prepared in advance, that we should live in them.”[i]
Mary lives this verse out to perfection. The verse is the template of Mary, the first disciple. It is also the template for every disciple. If we look at the Angelus prayer alongside the words of Saint Paul we see how Mary was full of grace, how she responded in faith and lived out a life of good works. Angel Gabriel says to Mary, “Hail, full of grace”. Mary responses to Angel Gabriel by saying, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord” a response of openness, trust and faith. At the beginning of Mass, the Priest, like the Angel Gabriel says, “The Lord be with you”[ii], hopefully our response like Mary’s is to say to God, “Behold your servant”. This meekness and poverty of spirit is an act of faith. Mary also says, “Be it done unto me according to Thy Word”. The faith of Mary, leads to charity, she is willing to do the will of the Father. She is open to the Word and therefore the Word becomes flesh and dwells among us.
Mary is “full of grace” because Grace is primary. We are given grace first. Our response to grace, should be faith and this faith is to be acted out in good works. “Grace is favor, the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call”[iii] Mary is called the favored one precisely because she is full of grace. grace is not a gift for self, but a gift given for the other, it is through grace that we are able to participate in the life of God.[iv]
The Boat Analogy by Saint Augustine
Saint Augustine gives an analogy of four boats; each boat represents a view of salvation. In each of these analogies we can see if grace, faith and works are present and in what order they are placed.
BOAT I– A rowboat. By Grace you are called to the rowboat and get in the boat. When you get in the boat you take ahold of both ores and row yourself to heaven. This boat represents the heresies of Arianism and Pelagianism. Arius denied the divinity of Jesus. Jesus is not a savior, because He is not divine, He was a model for us but a merely human model. Divinity and grace are not necessary for salvation. “Pelagius stated that man is born morally neutral and can achieve heaven under his own powers.”[v] We row ourselves to heaven and do not need God’s help. In this first analogy works would be first, then faith. Arius did teach that you had to have faith in beliefs, such as the teachings of Christ, the Ten Commandments, etc. Grace is not a part of the equation.
Works >> Faith (No Grace)
BOAT II– A row boat. Man chooses to get in the boat. When you get in the boat God is rowing and gets the boat going in the right direction, but eventually God gives over the ores to you and you row without the aid of God and arrive at heaven. This is the heresy called Semi-Pelagianism (Fifth Century). “Once a person has entered a state of grace, one can retain it through one’s efforts, without further grace from God.”[vi] Why do we know that God does not just get us going, “start the boat in the right direction” and then let us go alone? One, there is never a point in which we can “save ourselves” or “do it alone”. Two, God never abandons us He is always with us. Another variation of this would be both God and man each having an ore. What would happen if we have an ore and God has an ore? We would go in circles for two reasons, one, God would never stop rowing and we would and two God would always row better. In this analogy Faith comes first; it is free and unaided. Grace is next but is replaced by Works. Grace is needed only temporarily and then like Boat I it is not necessary.
Faith >> Grace (Grace is eventually replaced by Works) so you have Faith >> Works (No Grace)
Saint Augustine was one of the major opponents of Pelagianism. Augustine taught that man cannot choose (faith) without first being chosen (grace). “There is not one who does not love something, but the question is, what to love. The Psalms do not tell us not to love, but to choose the object of our love. But how can we choose unless we are first chosen? We cannot love unless someone has loved us first. Listen to the apostle John: We love him, because he first loved us. The source of man’s love for God can only be found in the fact that God loved him first. He has given us himself as the object of our love, and he has also given us its source. What this source is you may learn more clearly from the apostle Paul who tells us: The love of God has been poured into our hearts. This love is not something we generate ourselves; it comes to us through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”[vii]
BOAT III– A sailboat. By grace you are called to the boat and get in the boat. Once you are in the boat, the sail is filled with wind “holy spirit” and the boat sails to heaven. You just have to stay in the boat. You are able to jump off the boat if you like (free will), if you jump off the boat you are able to be rescued and get back on the boat (reconciliation) The Boat is the Church. Is it easy to stay on the boat? What would make us want to jump off the boat? To stay on the boat we have to believe in where the boat is going, and we also have to trust the boat. We look around often and see other boats going in other directions. Many times it looks like more fun on the other “party” boats or maybe the jet skis (people living solo, doing what they want and going where they want). It can also seem by the outer appearance that another “boat” seems sturdy, but when times get hard and the seas of life are rough those boats collapse in the waves, while the Catholic Church is able to help us ride the storm of life.
This is the Catholic analogy, with grace as primary (we are called, chosen), Faith follows as we choose to stay on board and then good works, as we stay and show charity to those on and off the boat.
Grace >> Faith >> Works
BOAT IV= A sailboat. By grace you are called to the boat and get in the boat. Once you are in the boat, you are chained to the mast of the boat and are unable to jump off. You are safe on the boat sail right to heaven. In this analogy grace is the only thing, it cannot be accepted or rejected.
Janesenism, thought that human’s do not have freedom to accept or reject grace. Christ did not die for all. Humans are so deprived they cannot keep all the Commandments and only the most worthy should receive the Eucharist. This is similar to Calvinism (pre-destination). Man is at the core evil, and so grace must cover him.
Grace (No Faith, No Works)
Can we reject Grace? “In point of fact, man does not suffer perdition only by being unfaithful to that fundamental option whereby he has made ‘a free self-commitment to God’. With every freely committed mortal sin, he offends God as the giver of the law and as a result becomes guilty with regard to the entire law (cf. Jas 2:8-11); even if he perseveres in faith, he loses ‘sanctifying grace’, ‘charity’ and ‘eternal happiness’. As the Council of Trent teaches, ‘the grace of justification once received is lost not only by apostasy, by which faith itself is lost, but also by any other mortal sin’”[viii]
Do I have Grace? Do you have Grace? The fourth boat would literally make people ask if they missed the boat or if they were on the boat. With both Janesenism and Calvinism, the question was whether the individual had grace or not. A pleasing illustration of this attitude is found in the reply of St. Joan of Arc to a question posed as a trap by her ecclesiastical judges: “Asked if she knew that she was in God’s grace, she replied: ‘If I am not, may it please God to put me in it, if I am, may it please God to keep me there.’”[ix]
Why would we be afraid of Grace? Saint Thomas Aquinas said that grace does not destroy nature but builds upon and prefects it. Pope Benedict XVI told the Chinese people during the 2008 Olympics, “The faith does not mean an alienation from any culture for any people because all cultures await Christ and are not destroyed by the Lord. In fact, they reach their maturity.” We should never be afraid of grace. God does not suppress human freedom, free will, as if Grace is some oppressive force. Saint Bonaventure says that free will is the second most powerful thing in the universe. God’s power is first. God is all-powerful, but does not “force” us to love or accept Him. If love is forced, then it is not love.
The Church upholds the belief and importance of both grace and nature and faith and reason. In the 16th century the Protestant Reformation rejected nature and reason, leaving only grace and faith. Two centuries the pendulum swung and the Enlightenment, also called the age of reason, rejected faith and grace, leaving only reason and nature. With both grace and faith gone, only good works remains. Good works without grace and faith becomes a religion in and of itself and is a return to Arian and Pelagianism.
Enlightenment philosophies include a mixture of the following:
Modernism – Religion is a matter of personal experience, just a movement of the heart. It is therefore subjective based on the person, not object based on divine revelation. Condemned in 1907 by Pope Pius X
Science - Knowledge based on observation, experiment, and reason.
Rationalism – Human reason is self-sufficient and does not need the help of divine revelation.
Humanism – Human existence and destiny are fully explainable in terms of this world without reference to eternity or God. Focus is on this life.
Materialism – All reality is only matter, the function of matter, or derived from matter. No distinction between matter and spirit; man’s soul is essentially material and not uniquely created by God. Material goods, interests, the pleasures of the body and emotional experience, are the only or at least the main reason for human existence.
The height of all of these theories occurred in the 19th century and it was then that a dogma was proclaimed and an apparition occurred. Pope Pius IX declared the dogma of the Immaculate Conception on December 8, 1854. “The most holy Virgin Mary was, in the first moment of her conception, by a unique gift of grace and privilege of almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ the Redeemer of mankind, preserved free from all stain of original sin.” Just four year later in Lourdes, France, the Blessed Virgin Mary said to Saint Bernadette “I am the Immaculate Conception.” In 1907 Pope Pius X, wrote the Oath against Modernism and made Our Lady of Lourdes a feast of the universal Church. Through the dogma of the Immaculate Conception the Church was teaching the necessity of Grace. In an age that was losing the sense of sin, the Church taught the reality of sin and grace. In the apparition of Our Lady of Lourdes, Saint Bernadette would show the Church and world that the simple faith of a child is not obsolete. In the middle of the 19th century, at a time when both faith and grace were being attached the Church and Mary the Mother of the Church reaffirms the reality of both.
Is Grace Necessary? Yes, it was necessary for Mary and is necessary for us. Mary was saved by Grace and by the merits of Jesus Christ, her Son. A good analogy is that of quick sand. You can be saved from quick sand in two ways. One, you fall in the sand and then you are helped out and saved from death. Two, someone prevents you from falling in and thus you are saved. We are the first; Mary is the second, but in both cases, salvation occurs.
What are the two kinds of Grace? Sanctifying Grace and Actual Grace. Sanctifying Grace is a habitual gift. It is the permanent disposition to live and act in keeping with God’s call. Actual Grace is the intervention of God, whether at the beginning of conversion or in the course of the work of sanctification.
Blessed John Paul II said that what is necessary in life is for each person to be on the path of perfection is God’s grace and our “yes”. What comes first, God’s Grace or our “yes”?
Actual grace is God’s grace leading to our “yes”, while sanctifying grace is our yes leading to God’s Grace. For example if a miracle occurs it might lead us to a conversion and then we choose or want to receive move. This is a cycle in which, actual grace, leads us to desire sanctifying grace. We then become a channel of grace for others. God can intervene in the life of others through us, and so we become an instrument of actual grace.
[i] Ephesians 2:8-10
[ii] Order of the Mass; Introductory Rite
[iii] Catechism of the Catholic Church - 1996
[iv] Catechism of the Catholic Church - 1997
[v] The Essential Catholic Survival Guide; Catholic Answers; page 362
[vi] The Essential Catholic Survival Guide; Catholic Answers; page 363
[vii] Saint Augustine; Liturgy of the Hours; Office of Readings; Third Week of Easter
[viii] Blessed John Paul II; Veritatis Splendor, 68
[ix] Catechism of the Catholic Church - 2005