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The Glories of Divine Grace is a critical book in anyone's spiritual formation. For; as the subtitle indicates; it is A Fervent Exhortation to All to Preserve and to Grow in Sanctifying Grace. We know that through Baptism we become children of God and heirs of Heaven; that we receive thereby Sanctifying Grace and thus have a share in the life of God Himself. But how many Catholics think little more about the nature of Sanctifying Grace and what it means? Not after this book! Impr. 447 pgs; PB
The passing years, which bury so many once-famous names under deep layers of forgetfulness, are raising Matthias Joseph Scheeben to an eminence reached by very few scholars. Time is the judge of all achievements, and has pronounced its verdict that Scheeben is the greatest theologian who has written in the German language. The reason for his importance is not hard to find. Scheeben is the chief theologian of the supernatural economy of the world. The intellectual blight known as rationalism had spread widely in the nineteenth century and had made disastrous inroads even in Christian circles. Although preliminary battles waged by Catholics who were turning back the unholy invasion, Scheeben was the champion who finally and decisively drove the enemy out of theology. From the very outset of his theological career, Scheeben had cherished the ambition of making the drab naturalistic world glow again in the light and beauty of grace, of bringing back to the awareness of men the glorious truth that they are God's children. In the first of his major books, Nature and Grace, he describes the supernatural as a sharing in the nature of God. This same theme, the splendor of our supernatural life, is the leading idea of all his works. He thought that a deep appreciation of the mysteries revealed by God was so important that he consecrated the tireless powers of his genius to the task of bringing out their beauty and force, and of emphasizing their meaning for the daily life of man. He insisted that these mysteries are the richest treasure of our spiritual inheritance and that theology is the inspiration of the fullest lie open to use-supernatural life with Christ and in Christ. Scheeben's masterly theological synthesis is best proposed in The Mysteries of Christianity, his most original work, but was clearly formulated from the beginning of his literary activity in Nature and Grace, the book of his energetic youth.
The Mysteries of Christianity is Matthias Joseph Scheeben’s youthful magnum opus, a logically rigorous and spiritually profound dogmatic theology. In its pages, he explores the intelligibility of Christianity’s supernatural mysteries and their deep connectedness, ultimately demonstrating that Christian theology constitutes a science before the court of human reason, even as its object transcends human comprehension. Scheeben’s task is to present a unified view of the whole panorama of revealed truth, and he pursues this by considering nine key Christian mysteries: the Trinity, creation, sin, the Incarnation, the Eucharist, the Church and its sacraments, justification, eschatological glory, and predestination. Since the mystery of the Trinity is the root of the supernatural order, Scheeben begins here, showing that the foundation of the salvific economy lies in the eternal processions of persons in God—the begetting of the Son and the spiration of the Spirit being in different ways the cause of the life of grace in the human soul. When the Son and the Spirit are sent into the world in the Incarnation and through the bestowal of grace, they provide the way for human beings to see God face-to-face in the beatific vision, the end for which God created humans. Among the means of return to God, Scheeben particularly emphasizes the Eucharist, on account of its close connection with the mystery of the Incarnation. By placing his treatment of the Eucharist before that of the Church, he signals that his is a genuinely Eucharistic ecclesiology, centered on the abiding presence of the incarnate divine Son.
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While her husband, Grammy Award-nominated vocalist/guitarist Phil Keaggy, traveled the world as a popular performer, Bernadette Keaggy weathered a private story--the loss of five children whom she was unable to carry to term. Now, Bernadette offers her inspiring story--a story of years of honest struggle that brought her near to hope, to love, and to God.
'Michael Hughes writes like a brilliant cross between David Mitchell and Hilary Mantel' Toby Litt In 1999 a programmer is trying to fix the millennium bug, but can't shake the sense he's been chosen for something. In 1888 five women are brutally murdered in the East End by a troubled young man in thrall to a mysterious master. In 1777 an apprentice engraver called William Blake has a defining spiritual experience; thirteen years later this vision returns. And in 1666 poet and revolutionary John Milton completes the epic for which he will be remembered centuries later. But where does the feeling come from that the world is about to end?
Let us consider the meanings of the word 'grace' set forth in the introduction to this excellent work: The various meanings are indicated by St. Thomas (Ia Iae, q. 110, a. I), but it is fitting that we say something of them at the beginning so that the connection may be apparent between the present question and the questions relating to God's love for us. First, there are of course three acceptations of this word "grace" even used in human affairs. For grace originally refers to something which is not due or is freely bestowed; this meaning is very common in both profane and biblical writings. Hence even in purely human matters the term "grace" has a threefold application, as follows:I. The love of benevolence conferring a gift which is not due; for example, we say: This soldier has the grace of the king.2. The gift itself freely bestowed; thus we say: I grant you this grace.3. Gratitude for a benefit received; thus: I render you thanks foryour benefits. Moreover, these three significations may be transferred to the supernatural order, whereupon the word grace applies to the following.1. The love of benevolence on the part of God, conferring supernatural life. This love of God is uncreated grace.2. The supernatural gift of grace itself, freely bestowed and ordainedto eternal life ; this is created grace, of which we are now treating,whether it is interior or exterior, such as the preaching of the gospel.3. Our gratitude to God. Between the human and the supernatural meanings of the word "grace" there lies a great difference which is principally based upon the fact that God's love of benevolence for us, as stated in la, q. 20, a. 2, infuses and creates goodness in things, whereas the love of benevolence of one man for another presupposes something lovable in that other. But "God's love for the creature is twofold, the common love whereby natural being is bestowed on created things, and the other special love by which God raises the rational creature above the state of nature unto a participation in the divine good. Thus grace is the effect of the love of God in us and signifies the supernatural gift freely granted by God to an intellectual creature ordained to eternal life" (Ia IIae, q. 110, a. I).Thus the whole treatise on grace in the Summa theologica of St. Thomas depends upon the treatise on the love of God (la, q. 20), in which are expressed and explained two supreme principles which throw a light from above upon all the articles of the treatise on grace and virtually contain them.Hence St. Thomas says: "It is demonstrated above (q. 19, a. 4) that the will of God is the cause of all things; so it must be that so far as a thing possesses being or any' good whatever, to that extent it is willed by God. Therefore God wills some good to whatever exists. And since loving is nothing else but wishing well to someone, it is clear that God loves all things that are, not however in the same way as we do. Our will is not the cause of the goodness of things. But the love of God infuses and creates goodness in things" (la, q.20, a. 2). Accordingly the will of God is also the cause of the goodness of our acts, while preserving their liberty. As St. Thomas says: "If the will of God is most efficacious, it follows not only that those things will be done which God wills to be done, but that they will be done in the way God wills them to be done. Thus God wills certain things to be necessary, others to be contingent, that there may be order among things for the perfection of the universe" (la, q. 19, a. 8).
