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T H E AVE MARIA P R E S S 
N O T R E DAME, I N D . 

1 9 4 0 



Imprimi potest: 
T . STEINER, C.S.C., Provincial 

Nihil obstat: 
W . ROBINSON, C.S.C., 

Censor deputatus 

Imprimatur: 
81 JOHN F . NOLL, D.D. 

Descldftsd 



p r e f a c e 
T ST. EDWARD'S University, 

Austin, Texas, a society was 
organized for the discussion of 
questions in which interest had 

been aroused in the classes of philosophy. 
During my term as moderator of the soci-
ety, I observed that most of my students 
did not understand the state of grace on 
its positive side. They knew it meant free-
dom from mortal sin; but they did not 
grasp the distinction between the natural 
order and the supernatural order; neither 
did they realize the significance of regen-
eration and divine adoption. And so I re-
quested Father Drummey, who had just 
completed his course of theology at St. 
Edward's to write an essay on the positive 
aspect of the state of grace. He was al-
ready known to the Texas boys as "the 
wizard" because of his clairvoyant an-
swers to their questions. This essay, how-
ever, was a more sustained effort than any-
thing he had hitherto attempted. He soared 

3 



4 OUR LIFE OF GRACE 

like an eagle to dizzy intellectual heights, 
and amazed the members of the society 
with his mastery in this region of sublim-
est thought. 

I regarded the essay as the best any 
pupil of mine ever wrote. The meaning of 
the natural order as contradistinguished 
from the supernatural order is admirably 
treated. The analogy between divine con-
servation and concurrence in the natural 
order and habitual and actual grace in the 
supernatural order is clearly stated, — in 
fact, the whole essay is a powerful syn-
thesis of natural wisdom with revealed 
doctrine. The plentitude of grace of the 
Blessed Virgin is fervently depicted and 
is made to emphasize the stupendous truth 
that there is a greater difference between 
the least soul in grace and the highest intel-
lectual creature in a state of pure nature, 
than there is between the Blessed Virgin 
herself and the least soul in grace. 

Father Drummey was pleased with his ef-
fort. When I congratulated him, he thanked 
me for having asked him to attempt 
i t ; and, according to his intimate friend, 



PREFACE 5 

Father Peiper, the last thing he inquired 
about before departing for Deming was 
the whereabouts of his copy of the essay. 
It had remained a manuscript in my pos-
session until on a visit to Holy Cross Col-
lege, through the courtesy of Mr. Young 
and Mr. Hooyboer, two copies were typed 
and bound. After Father Drummey's death 
his copy disappeared, and, fearing the 
other copy might also be lost I suggested 
to a friend of Father Drummey that it 
would be well to have it printed. This he 
enabled me to do. 

Perhaps it would be well to warn the 
reader that Father Drummey's essay is a 
substantial piece of work. You will have to 
be wide awake to get what is in it. Grace 
is one of those subjects to which the words 
of St. Paul may be applied : "We have 
much to say, and hard to be intelligibly 
uttered, because you are become weak to 
hear. For whereas by this time you ought 
to be masters, you have need to be taught 
again what are the first elements of the 
words of God : and you are become such 
as have need of milk and not of strong 



6 OUR LIFE OF GRACE 

meat ." 1 This essay is meat for men rather 
than milk for babes. There is no easy way 
to explain the meaning of spiritual and 
supernatural. God is a spirit. The first 
act of a saint is to know. Faith is an act 
of the intellect. Must all sermons be short ? 
Did Christ die for the vulgar only.? In spite 
of the present antagonism to everything 
aristocratic and the desire to abolish all 
classes in society, a class does exist which 
can read what the majority of people are 
either unable or unwilling to read. Relig-
ious orders have the duty to enrich with 
works on theology a language whose pover-
ty in this field is pitiful. Until Arthur Preuss 
translated Pohle's Dogmatic Theology into 
English and Charles Hebermann and his 
associates gave us the Catholic Encyclope-
dia, English readers were largely depend-
ent on compendiums. If works on theology 
were translated from the French or Ger-
man they were usually abridged. Of late a 
noble effort has been started in England 
to make theology available for laymen. 
We are indebted to G. H. Joyce, S.J. for 

i Heb. V, 12. 



PREFACE 7 

an excellent book on grace and to Father 
Arendzen for good books on the Holy 
Trinity and the Incarnation. But there is 
still, to use a phrase of Father Cavanaugh, 
"yawning receptivity" in the English lan-
guage. Every serious treatment of a theo-
logical subject in language Americans can 
understand is a service to the cause of 
Christ. We must not forget there is an 
army of persons teaching religion in the 
United States who can read with facility 
no language except English, and a vast 
multitude of laymen who are studying or 
have studied philosophy in English. 

The time seems ripe for a renewal of 
interest in the supernatural. The second 
world-war has given Naturalism a rude 
jolt. Men deified nature. They declared 
science had done away with any need of a 
Supernatural Being. Thinking they had 
evolved from animals, men began to be-
have accordingly; dreaming they were 
one with the divinity, their egotism passed 
all bounds. Looking now upon the tragic 
results of human pride and sensuality, the 
spiritually earnest are turning back to a 



8 OUR LIFE OF GRACE 

supernatural Father in whose power and 
love they can joyfully trust. Even in the 
state of nature man essentially outclasses 
the brute. A brute is not eligible for the 
state of grace because he has no intellect 
and will. These spiritual faculties are prop-
erties of men whether in the state of nature 
or of grace. Rare, indeed, among Ameri-
cans is a clear understanding of the mean-
ing of either spiritual or supernatural. 

The biographical sketch which precedes 
the essay will further introduce Father 
Drummey to his readers. It indicates, I 
think, that the Holy Ghost has not been 
idle among the priests of Holy Cross. My 
original plan was to make it very brief, but 
af ter I became acquainted with the letters 
I saw the advantage of including quotations 
from them. In fact they deserve more 
attention than I give them. The letters I 
quote from were loaned to me by his moth-
er and were written from Deming during 
the last three months of his life. I am sure 
the members of his own Congregation and 
his sisters in Holy Cross will be interested 
in them. They show that alert, intelligent 



PREFACE 9 

holiness has flourished in our midst. The 
question is sometimes asked: Are the 
simple or the learned more apt to attain to 
the intimacy of loving union with God? 
And the answer is: The simple; because 
the learned are seldom humble enough. But 
when the learned are humble they have 
the better chance. When I was a boy in 
Holy Cross Seminary, Father Cavanaugh 
brought over a bishop who talked to us on 
the text: Lucere vanum est; ardere parvum 
est; sed lucere et ardere perfectum est. The 
letters of Father Drummey show that he 
was a burning as well as a shining light. 

Cornelius Hagerty, C.S.C., 
Professor of Apologetics, 

University of Notre Dame. 





3 n j W e m o r i a m 

RANCIS EDWARD DRUMMEY 
was born December 26, 1899, 
on a farm near Monroe, Wis-
consin. His grandparents came 

from Ireland : the Drummeys from Mayo, 
and the Murphys and McCarthys, his 
mother's people, from Cork. His father 
was a reverent and conscientious man ; his 
mother had the gentleness and tenderness 
of the southern Irish. The boy grew up in 
one of those rural communities the gradu-
al disappearance of which is a source of 
deep regret to all lovers of the Irish. A 
school stood on a corner of the Drummey 
farm presided over by Mary Daugherty, a 
relative of the Drummeys. Pupils came 
from a number of Irish families living on 
adjacent farms and one teacher was 
charged with their entire elementary edu-
cation. Thus a favorable environment ex-
isted for the transmission of the Catholic 
social inheritance. Innocence of heart, sin-
cerity of mind, reverence for all that is 
holy had a better chance to flourish under 

11 



12 OUR LIFE OF GRACE 

such circumstances than amidst the indis-
criminate influences of a modern city. 
Mary Daugherty was an intelligent teach-
er, and succeeded in impressing on the 
nimble mind of her relative habits of 
exactness and thoroughness. 

He pursued his high school studies in 
Monroe, living with his grandmother in 
town or driving back and forth to the farm 
in a buggy. After securing his diploma, he 
spent two years at the University of Wis-
consin. He made progress in the art of 
writing and was grateful especially for a 
course in Wooley's English Composition. He 
was on the point of returning to Wiscon-
sin for his junior year when the departure 
of his younger brother, Harry, for Holy 
Cross Seminary, caused him to realize his 
vocation. With characteristic decisiveness 
he followed in a few days. At Notre 
Dame he formed lasting friendships with 
his fellow - seminarians, enjoyed rugged 
health and was admitted to the Students' 
Army Training Corps then established at 
Notre Dame. So well did he succeed in his 
classes that he was selected as an honor-



DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL 13 

student to make his philosophical and 
theological studies in Rome. At the Gre-
gorian University his brilliant mnd soon 
captured the respect of his professors and 
fellow students. Rome itself was a fascina-
tion to him, with its historical monuments 
and treasures of art. During the following 
summer he went to Lourdes to make his 
retreat, and there on August 20th, 1924, 
in the Grotto of the Apparition he pro-
nounced his final vows of religion. 

Shortly afterwards, while on a hike in 
the Pyrenees with a group of fellow-stu-
dents, he suffered, to his own amazement 
and the shock of all, a hemorrhage of the 
lungs. Bowing in meek submission to the 
will of God "who scourgeth every son 
whom he receiveth" he "looked on Jesus, 
the author and finisher of faith, who hav-
ing joy set before him, endured the cross, 
despising the shame." 1 At this point there 
began to be manifest the deep spirituality 
which characterized the last ten years of 
his life. These lines from the Song of the 
Mystic describe his experience: 

1 Heb. XII, 2. 



14 OUR LIFE OF GRACE 

I walk down the valley of silence— 
Down the dim voiceless valley—alone! 

And I hear not the fall of a footstep 
Around me, save God's and my own. * * * * * 

Do you ask what I found in the valley? 
Tis my trysting-place with the Divine; 

And I fell at the feet of the Holy, 
And above me a voice said: "Be mine!" * * * * * 

Do you ask how I live in the valley? 
I weep and I dream and I pray. 

And my prayers, like a perfume from censers, 
Ascendeth to God, night and day. 

At the command of his superiors he re-
turned to the United States, took up his res-
idence at Holy Cross Sanatorium, Deming, 
New Mexico, and set about the business of 
getting well with calm determination. Even 
the shock of the death of his brother, Har-
ry, who had followed him to the sanato-
rium only to succumb after a year of rav-
aging malady, did not dishearten him. 
Scrupulously obedient to doctor and nurse, 
he yet availed himself of the opportunity 
the locality presented of learning Spanish; 
and as his health improved he devoted 
what time he could to studying theology. 



LIFE AT ST. EDWARD'S 15 

So well did he succeed in private study 
that, when permitted, af ter four years, to 
take up formal class at St. Edward's Uni-
versity, Austin, Texas, his professors jok-
ingly complained of difficulty in keeping 
up with his giant strides. After two years 
of intense application he was permitted by 
dispensation to be ordained priest on De-
cember 20, 1931. How he cherished this 
honor may be gathered from a letter to the 
Rev. James Donahue, C.S.C., his superior 
general: "I wish to thank you, good Fath-
er, for your thoughtfulness and kindness, 
especially for the greatest of all favors: 
making it possible for me to be ordained 
in so short a time." 

He remained at St. Edward's for two 
years as professor of Religion and Spanish. 
The exhilaration of having reached the 
goal of the priesthood and the congenial 
atmosphere of the college stimulated him 
to renewed intellectual effort. During this 
time he wrote the essay on Our Life 
of Grace. His career as a teacher, like 
that of Father James Trahey, C.S.C., who 
lies buried in the little cemetery at St. 



16 OUR LIFE OF GRACE 

Edward's, was short in time but lasting in 
influence. Not only did he instruct his 
pupils well, but he inspired his fellow-
teachers with enthusiasm for Christianity 
on its intellectual side. 

The following year he was sent by his 
superiors to take care of a little flock 
of Mexicans at Georgetown, Texas. His 
knowledge of Spanish made him available 
for the work, and the sad plight of his 
parishioners stirred his priestly zeal to 
exertions beyond his physical resources. In 
two years, the hardships of missionary life 
and his own ardor brought back fatal ac-
tivity to the latent malady. This time nei-
ther his own courage nor the devoted care 
of his Sisters in Holy Cross at Deming 
could avail. On June 17, 1935, God called 
him home. He lies buried at Notre Dame, 
beside the brilliant and beloved Fathel 
Cavanaugh, C.S.C. 

The judgment of a man's intimate asso-
ciates is a good standard by which to esti-
mate his worth. Father Drummey was re-
spected, admired and loved by those who 
knew him best. He radiated intellectual 



LOVE OF TRUTH 17 

vitality. His deep, quick mind had achieved 
a comprehensive grasp of Christian wis-
dom. He was at home in a philosophical 
or theological discussion. He was familiar 
with contemporary trends of thought and 
sensitive to sources of culture. His conver-
sation had the charm of one who lived in 
a high realm of spirituality. He had a sin-
cere love for truth. He detested intellectual 
dishonesty and did not like intellectual 
carelessness. Gentle and considerate of the 
feelings of others, he never became excited 
or disagreeable; but he stood his ground 
in an argument and spoke out like a free 
man even when diplomacy suggested that 
he be subservient. Truth was life to him 
and he did not compromise it. He did not 
suffer his judgments to be swayed by 
personal feelings. A word of praise or 
criticism from him had significance. He 
loved the companionship of priests. His 
penetrating intellect, his rare honesty, his 
joy in conversation, his whimsical humor, 
his deep humility, endeared him to the 
faculty at St. Edward's. 

Considered not only as an intellect, but 



18 OUR LIFE OF GRACE 

also as a will, his was a strong spirit. He 
never lost self-control. The last decade of 
his life was a triumph of will over emotion, 
of grace over nature. He had to wage a 
constant battle against discouragement. 
Those who knew him intimately appre-
ciated his dauntless courage and his un-
ruffled serenity. He did not allow ill-health 
to make him selfish. It was sheer heroism 
that made him face the hardships of mis-
sionary work among the Mexicans. He 
might have asked to remain at St. Ed-
ward's or to retire to Deming, but he did 
not. He went where obedience called him, 
and the zeal of the Lord consumed him. 
His love for his mother and family was 
tender and strong. He was loyally devoted 
to the Congregation of Holy Cross and 
ambitious for its welfare and development. 
He was considerate and manifested true 
kindness of heart. One of his last requests 
was that the person who kept his room 
supplied with flowers be fittingly remem-
bered. 

The essence of sanctity consists in com-
plete conformity of a human will to the 



HUMILITY 19 

Divine Will. A severe test of such conform-
ity is the humble acceptance of the sum-
mons of death in the midst of one's days. 
In dimidio dierum meorum vadam ad portas 
inferi. The pain, loneliness and separation 
of death are hard to bear at any time, but 
there is peculiar humiliation and disap-
pointment in being called while one's plans 
are unfulfilled and one's comrades are still 
vigorous. It is hard for youth to realize 
"they also serve who only stand and wait." 
The following excerpts from his letters 
show that he departed from this life in 
loving union with God: 

"I think I can truthfully say I am happy 
because my constant prayer is that God's 
holy will may be perfectly done in me. 
Make this your prayer for me." "Since I 
am the one most concerned about the out-
come of my sickness and since I am cheer-
ful and resigned to God's holy will, every-
one else ought to be of the same disposi-
tions. Keep up the prayer that God's holy 
will may be perfectly accomplished in 
me." "I hardly expect to get well. Yet, as 
I have said before, there is no gloominess 
or sadness on my part. I am cheerful and 



20 OUR LIFE OF GRACE 

happy in being resigned to go when it may-
please God to take me, and the saints tell 
us these are the best possible preparations. 
The only thing that causes me sorrow , is 
that in all your letters you seem to make 
the recovery of my physical health the 
only end of your prayers. Once again, I 
beg of you, dear mother, to pray not that 
I may get well, but that the holy will of 
God may be perfectly accomplished in me. 
Please smile and be cheerful and thank 
God that He gives me this time to prepare 
to meet Him and to suffer a little in union 
with the Passion and Death of Our Lord. 
I offer all my little aches and pains as acts 
of love to the Sacred Heart." "I trust you 
are striving more and more every day to 
accept the sweet and holy will of God. 
Cheerfully to offer this sacrifice which He 
seems to be demanding of us is one of the 
very greatest things you can do for me. Do 
not get the impression that I am sad or 
downcast. Though, naturally, I am not 
laughing with a smile from ear to ear, I 
feel I am truly cheerful and at peace. I 
think I can honestly say that I have never 
felt closer to God than I do now." 



HOLY WISDOM 21 
"So far we have been considering only 

the cross and the sad side of life. But it 
would be a great mistake to let our 
thoughts stop here and not go beyond, 
for all sufferings and crosses are meant 
to lead to a glorious and unending future 
joy. Remember that af ter Good Friday 
there is always Easter Sunday. Heaven 
awaits them who have died, repentant of 
their sins. I am sure we ought to dwell 
more often on this aspect of our crosses 
and our sufferings. For all of us life is 
short. Let us pray and strive then that we 
may all be happily united in Heaven rath-
er than that we may live on earth forever. 
Let us keep cheerful and happy in the 
thought that whatever God wills for us 
must always be for the best." "When I 
hear of so many sudden deaths, I realize 
how good God is to me in warning me of 
the approach of my own and giving me 
the grace to prepare for it and to be 
resigned to it." 

"How much longer I have to live I do 
not know, but let us cheerfully leave it in 
the hands of God. I offer all my pains and 



22 OUR LIFE OF GRACE 

sufferings through the sorrows of St. Jo-
seph and the dolors of Mary in union with 
the Passion and Death of Our Lord as so 
many acts of love to His Sacred Heart. Let 
us pray and suffer together and we shall 
be happy." "Try to keep cheerful and bear 
up, remembering that in resigning yourself 
entirely to God's will you are making the 
greatest offering possible, one which is 
very pleasing to Him and is bound to have 
a great reward. But if you make the offer-
ing and are then very sad and discouraged, 
in a way you take back the offering. Don't 
picture me as sad and mournful. While I 
have as much natural fear of death as any-
body, I have resigned myself entirely to 
God and am confident He will take care of 
me. Keep up the prayers and good cheer." 

"I know that you have made the great 
resignation to God and are cheerful and 
completely resigned to whatever His Will 
is regarding me. Let us be faithful to this 
offering, you and I together, and we will 
have an eternal reward where thorns will 
be turned into crowns. From the first I 
have never attempted to disguise the fact 



INTIMATE UNION 23 

that I am very sick, and I do not hesitate 
to tell you I am not expected to recover. 
Let us feel cheerful and happy about this 
because St. Paul tells us that we have not 
here a lasting city, but seek one which is 
to come. As I have told you before, I feel 
cheerful and entirely submissive to God's 
most holy Will." "I have been feeling 
pretty sick the last week As a precau-
tion I was anointed yesterday. Don't think 
that it made me sad or fearful . On the 
contrary, it gave me renewed confidence 
and cheerfulness in the Lord. . . . Don't let 
this discourage or dishearten you, for trust-
ing in the infinite Mercy of God I have 
hope of going to a better land where sick-
ness, sorrow, mourning and death are no 
more. The best possible way you can help 
me is to be entirely resigned to God's holy 
Will and to pray that I may be equally so. 
I love all of you with all my heart and I 
ask you to favor me by keeping cheerful 
and entirely resigned to God's holy Will." 

"Your telegram came yesterday after-
noon and I was very happy to receive it. 
I do not mind your shedding a few tears; 



24 OUR LIFE OF GRACE 

these will help to relieve the strain; but 
this does not mean you should be sad or 
discouraged. Pray for me and leave all 
in the hands of God. Judging merely by 
human signs, there is every promise of a 
happy death for me." 

On May 19th he wrote to his provincial: 
"Dear Father Burns: I cannot tell you how 
happy your gentle and fatherly letter made 
me I am happy that you do not forget 
me in your prayers. Perhaps, you will be 
pleased to know that I offer up every Fri-
day for the interior life of our Community, 
and various other days for one or other of 
its particular interests. Just at present I 
am feeling pretty well. I regard this gentle 
but certain warning with the time given 
to prepare and grace to accept it, as one 
of the greatest mercies of God. 

I remain your servant and son in Jesus 
Christ, 

Frank E. Drummey, C.S.C." 



SUPERNATURAL VIEWPOINT 25 

After Father Drummey's death, Father 
Burns wrote the following letter to Mrs. 
Drummey: 

"I need not tell you how deeply we all 
sympathize with you in the great loss that 
has come to you and us. The consolation 
must be that it is your loss and ours, and 
not his. His soul was so pure and holy and 
completely resigned to the divine will, that 
we must believe that his going was only a 
swift passage from earth to heaven. He 
had his purgatory on earth. The example 
of his saintly life with his perfect resigna-
tion to God's will is a precious heritage 
for our Community which we shall de-
voutly cherish. Who can tell ?—perhaps, 
through the example of his saintliness he 
did more than others are able to do 
through a long life of service in ardent 
zeal. I feel we have him to pray for us in 
heaven. While he was in Deming these last 
months I felt that he was so near to God 
that his prayers would be precious for us, 
and in every letter I asked him for the 
benefit of them." 

Evidently Frank Drummey aimed at 



26 OUR LIFE OF GRACE 

and achieved perfect submission to the 
will of God. The letters reveal humility 
and love triumphant in the life of this 
young priest. "Then said I : Behold, I come 
to do Thy will, O God." 1 

I Heb. X, 9. 



<&uv l i f e o f # r a c e 
T FIRST sight it might seem 
strange that your moderator 
should ask me to read a paper 
on a subject quite beyond the 

proper field of philosophical speculation. 
A little thought, however, will show us the 
propriety of integrating philosophy and 
theology. The Church has ever maintained 
that revelation and reason are not enemies 
but friends, and a proverb declares that 
philosophy is the handmaiden of theology. 
The history of the Church attests that true 
philosophy has served her well. In great 
crises brought about by disputes over the 
teachings of Christ the Church was obliged 
to use terms that were exact and intel-
ligible. The happy privilege of supplying 
the terms in which she has defined many of 
the articles of faith belongs to Aristotelian 
and scholastic philosophy. If you would 
see how generously the Church appropri-
ates the language of philosophy even in 
her liturgy, read the preface of the Mass 

27 



28 OUR LIFE OF GRACE 

for Trinity Sunday, the sequence for Cor-
pus Christi, or the Athanasian Creed. 

Now there are few truths which a knowl-
edge of philosophy helps us so much to 
understand as the doctrine of grace. It is 
the dogma of grace that places the whole 
structure of our religion on a supernatural 
plane, far , f a r above the reach of the un-
aided intellect of man. To know where the 
natural stops and the supernatural begins, 
we need a thorough training in the noble 
science of reason. It is my hope that this 
paper will give you yet another proof that 
the best possible natural preparation for 
a clear understanding of our faith is a 
course in scholastic philosophy. For those 
of you who are not of our faith a discus-
sion of grace is far from being time wasted. 
Even as a mere matter of culture no man, 
no matter what his personal belief, can 
afford to be ignorant of a system of thought 
which has had such a fa r reaching influ-
ence on civilization. I fear that all too 
often men outside of the Church pride 
themselves on knowing her merely because 
they have learned to associate her in some 



FAITH AND REASON 29 

vague way with the feudal system, the 
Crusades, the clink of armor, Gothic ar-
chitecture, etc. Really to get acquainted 
with the Catholic Church is to know her 
in her interior life—in her mind and heart 
and soul; and no one can know the mind 
and heart and soul of the Catholic Church 
unless he first learns something of her 
teaching about grace. 

I feel that I should warn you at the out-
set that grace is strictly a supernatural 
subject; its very existence we learn of not 
from reason but from revelation. In this 
brief paper on one of the most profound 
and inscrutable mysteries of the faith—-a 
mystery in the consideration of which the 
greatest minds have confessed their limi-
tations, and innumerable other minds less 
great and less humble have grievously 
erred—it seems almost an unconscious sal-
ly of humor for me to say that I present 
nothing original. My aim is to make you 
acquainted with our common Christian 
heritage of truth. 



30 OUR LIFE OF GRACE 

T h e Natural Order 
Since, as I previously mentioned, grace 

in the Catholic sense of the word belongs 
wholly to the supernatural order, before 
we can make any progress in our study, 
we must know what the supernatural or-
der is; and before we can know what the 
supernatural order is, we must have at 
least an elementary idea of what is meant 
by the natural order. The key to an under-
standing of the natural order is to be found 
in an accurate analysis of all that the term 
creature connotes. There is one eternal Be-
ing, infinitely perfect in all His attributes. 
This Being, of course, is God. Now when 
God by an exercise of His incommunicable 
creative power causes another being to 
exist, He endows that being with prin-
ciples or elements which constitute it and 
make it what it is. These principles con-
sidered as constituting and making a thing 
what it is are called its essence; consid-
ered as the subject in which its qualities 
inhere, they are called its substance; con-
sidered as the source from which the ac-
tivities of a thing proceed, they are called 



WHAT CREATURES ARE 31 

its nature. These three terms—essence, 
substance, and nature—are synonymous; 
they stand for the same thing regarded 
from different points of view. 

Every being acts. From everything that 
God has made acts proceed as from their 
source. The universal principle of causal-
ity declares that for every effect there must 
be an adequate cause, or, in other words, 
that no effect can be greater than its 
cause; since, moreover, the acts of every 
being are effects which flow from that 
being's nature as from their cause, we 
must conclude that the acts of any being 
are of the same nature as the being from 
which they proceed. Furthermore, every 
being attains its end by its acts, and its 
acts are themselves a cause when consid-
ered in relation to the effect they produce. 
Hence the end of any being must have a 
real proportion to the acts of that being, 
and the acts of any being must follow the 
nature of that being itself. To deny this is 
to repudiate in its entirety the principle 
of causality. 

Let me repeat that if we would have a 



32 OUR LIFE OF GRACE 

true notion of grace, we must have a clear 
idea of the supernatural, and if we would 
understand the supernatural, we must 
firmly grasp the limitations of the natural 
order. And once again, the understanding 
of the natural order depends on our for-
ever keeping in mind what the term crea-
ture means. Now if we consider the lowliest 
atom, the microscopic plant, the invisible 
amoeba, the oak of the forest, the 
tiger of the jungle, man himself, the whole 
world of stars, or the highest of the angels, 
we shall see that the one concept common 
to them all, lying at the very root of their 
being is that they are created and, there-
fore, finite natures. If we can conceive of 
God creating a being as far above the 
highest angel as the highest angel is above 
inert matter, the same truth comes relent-
lessly back to us: precisely because this 
magnificent being would be a creature, it 
would resemble all other creatures in be-
ing finite. The creation of an infinite being 
is impossible. 

When we speak of the natural existence 
of a creature, we must mean such a mode 



THE NATURAL ORDER 33 

of being as is proper to a finite nature; 
when we speak of the natural act of a 
creature, we mean an act which flows from 
and has. a causal relation to a finite nature; 
when we speak of the natural end of a 
creature we mean an end proportionate 
to the natural mode of being and acting 
of a finite nature. With the truth firmly 
established in our minds that the product 
of the omnipotent act of creation must 
ever be a finite nature and that between 
the nature, the act, and the end of a being 
there must always be a strict proportion, 
let us carry our thought a bit further. Be-
cause of God's very perfection He can 
never act without purpose and wisdom and 
justice. When God, therefore, creates a 
being, He always fixes an end for that 
being to attain. Since a being attains its 
end by its act, and since its act, as an effect 
from a cause, cannot be greater than the 
nature from which it proceeds, we see 
that the natural end of every creature must 
be in just proportion to the nature of every 
creature. If this were not true, and God 
were to establish as the natural end for a 
creature that which was out of proportion 



34 OUR LIFE OF GRACE 

to the creature's nature, God would not 
be all-wise. 

When, then, God creates a being and 
sets for it an end which it must attain, He 
binds Himself in justice to supply that be-
ing with all that is necessary for the at-
tainment of its end. Manifestly God would 
not be just if He were to decree that a 
creature attain a certain end and at the 
same time were to deny that creature any-
thing that was indispensable for it in order 
to reach its end. We may regard, there-
fore, as due in justice to a creature, once 
it is created, whatever it strictly needs to 
attain the end set for it by God. Since a 
creature's nature is necessarily finite and 
its act and end are in conformity with its 
nature, we see the intrinsic limitation of 
the natural order. Finiteness is its badge 
or trademark. We may consequently de-
fine the natural order as the sum total of 
all that is necessary for the natural exist-
ence, the natural operation, and the nat-
ural end of all created beings. 

It would be a monstrous error to con-
clude, as many non-Catholic thinkers have 



IN HIM WE LIVE 35 

done, that the natural order as thus con-
ceived is independent of God. So f a r is this 
from being true that the natural order 
requires the presence and operation of 
God just as imperiously as the supernat-
ural order does. Once more, a glance at 
the implications of the term creature will 
make this clear. It is of the very essence of 
the creature that it has its being from 
another. Hence the very existence of the 
creature presupposes the Creator. Since 
the creature receives its being from an-
other, it has not within itself the reason 
or necessity for its own existence. It must 
be conserved in existence. Hence the con-
tinued existence of the creature requires 
the continuous act of God sustaining the 
creature. Moreover, the creature attains 
its end by its act. But since no creature 
is its act but is in potency to its act, and 
since whatever is in potency can be re-
duced to act only by some agent extrinsic 
to itself, the activities of all creatures de-
mand the presence of God to supply a 
divine assistance to enable them to act. 
Lastly, though each creature has its own 
proper end, yet no creature can be an 



36 OUR LIFE OF GRACE 

absolutely ultimate end in itself. Since it is 
of the essence of a creature to have being 
ab alio, it is equally of the essence of a 
creature that its absolute and ultimate end 
be ad alium. As God is the beginning, so 
God must be the end of all creation. In 
summary we see that the natural order is 
the total of all that is necessary for the 
natural existence, the natural operation, 
and the natural end of all created beings, 
and secondly, that the natural order in-
cludes the presence and operation of God 
as Creator, Sustainer, Prime Mover, and 
Final End. 

T h e Supernatural Order 
Once, we clearly perceive what the nat-

ural order is, the meaning of the super-
natural follows almost as a corollary. Just 
as the natural order embraces all that is 
necessary for the natural existence, opera-
tion, and end of creatures, so the super-
natural is all that surpasses what is 
necessary for the natural existence, opera-
tion, and end of creatures. Let us not, 
however, make the mistake of confounding 
mere natural bountifulness with the super-



THE SUPERNATURAL 37 

natural. The fact that God has provided 
man with a greater area of living tissue 
and a larger variety of food than are nec-
essary for health, is strictly according to 
nature and is within the natural order, for 
there is place for divine liberality in the 
natural as well as in the supernatural or-
der. The supernatural differs from the 
natural not merely in degree but in kind. 
Since the supernatural embraces that 
which surpasses the natural existence, 
operation and end of a creature, it denotes 
that to which a created nature has no 
right. In a word, the supernatural is an 
excellence or perfection of such a kind 
that it can never be due or proper to any 
creature of itself. 

So as not to go astray, we must dis-
tinguish several classes of the supernat-
ural. The relatively supernatural is a per-
fection which is above the nature of one 
or more divisions of created beings but is 
not above the nature of all created beings. 
For example, sentiency is above the nature 
of a plant but it is natural to man and 
brute; immortality is above the nature of 



38 OUR LIFE OF GRACE 

man but it is natural to an angel. Hence 
sentiency and immortality are only rela-
tively supernatural. They are above the 
natures of some but not of all creatures. 
A more proper term for the relatively 
supernatural is the preternatural. 

In contrast to the relatively supernatural 
or preternatural we have the absolutely 
supernatural, which is above the nature 
not only of some but of all creatures. The 
absolutely supernatural is subdivided into 
two classes: the absolutely supernatural as 
to mode and the absolutely supernatural 
as to substance. The former is an act which 
is natural as to the result which it pro-
duces but which is so distinctly supernat-
ural in the mode in which it produces its 
result that it can have only God as its 
cause. For example, the instant return to 
life of a decaying corpse or the sudden 
calming by a word of an angry sea are 
cases of the absolutely supernatural as to 
mode; for while the results produced—a 
living body and a calm sea—are within 
the natural order, the mode by which these 
results are produced is above the powers 



BEATIFIC VISION 39 

of a created nature. Another name for the 
absolutely supernatural as to mode, if we 
consider it in the concrete, is miracles. 

We come now to the third and last di-
vision of the supernatural—the absolutely 
supernatural as to substance. In this kind 
of supernatural not only the mode of pro-
duction but also the effect produced is 
above the whole nature and power and 
range of created beings. This is the super-
natural in its strictest and most proper 
meaning. It is the supernatural in this 
ultimate and absolute sense that stands in 
highest contrast to the natural order. Of 
the supernatural in this third sense, that 
is, the absolutely supernatural as to sub-
stance, we have only three examples. They 
are : the hypostatic union of the divine na-
ture with a human nature in Jesus Christ; 
grace; and the beatific vision. Since, how-
ever, grace and the beatific vision are re-
lated as means and end, neither can be 
studied in complete independence of the 
other; and just as it is the last book of the 
Bible that opens to us a fact left unex-
plained in the first book, viz., the fall of 



40 OUR LIFE OF GRACE 

the angels, so it is the beatific vision, the 
ultimate purpose and end and raison d'etre 
of grace, that reveals to us the nature and 
awful dignity of grace. But as the beatific 
vision is itself a supernatural mode of 
knowing God, in order to grasp its signi-
ficance, we must recall a few truths about 
knowledge and, particularly, about man's 
natural way of knowing God. 

T h e First A c t of a Spirit 
The end of every being is the good, and 

every being attains its end or the good by 
means of its acts. The distinctive acts of 
an intelligent being are the act of knowing 
and the act of willing. By the act of know-
ing an intelligent being makes the good 
present to i t ; by the act of willing it takes 
hold of the good, cleaves to it, and makes 
it its own. Because of this fact the act 
of the intellect must always precede the 
act of the will. What is not known in 
any manner whatsoever cannot be loved. 
If you place the Bible and a fresh bone 
before a dog, he loses no time in choosing 
the bone. Why cannot animals love art and 
poetry and drama and science and virtue 



INTELLECTUALISM 41 

and all that makes the civilized man? 
Clearly, because they cannot know these 
things. Why must all the joys of the mind 
be always shut put in this life from the 
experience of the perpetual idiot? Because 
his faculty of knowing is defective, and, 
not being able to know the things of the 
mind, he can not love and enjoy them. 

A second vital truth is that for an intel-
lectual being knowledge is not only the. 
means but it is also the measure of love 
and joy and happiness. When an object is 
decidedly lovable in itself, the measure in 
which different beings know it will be the 
measure in which they love it. As between 
the Bible and his nursery book of rhymes 
and pictures, the child will choose the lat-
ter. But the mature person who really 
knows the Bible will always cherish it as 
the greatest book in the world. Love of 
itself could not achieve the high spiritual 
life of a St. Theresa. Such love as hers was 
excited by the kind of knowledge she re-
ceived. Yes, the measure of knowledge is 
the measure of love. Since knowledge is an 
act or at least the result of an act and since 



42 OUR LIFE OF GRACE 

the nature of an act follows the nature of 
the subject of which it is an act, we must 
conclude that the knowledge of which any-
being is capable will depend ultimately on 
the nature of that being. 

T h e Di f f erence b e t w e e n Media te 
and Immedia te K n o w l e d g e 

Now what has this to do with our prob-
lem? The application is easy and direct. 
The brute having only a sentient nature, 
can know only the material and the par-
ticular; man, because of the spiritual na-
ture of his soul can know the immaterial 
and the universal. All things that are, 
though not the proper object, are yet the 
adequate object of man's knowledge. Con-
sequently, man can know the universal 
good and can desire it. Since in God only 
is the universal good realized, God must 
be the ultimate end of man. If an intel-
lectual being attains its end by its acts of 
knowing and willing, and if knowledge 
is the measure of willing or loving or en-
joying, it follows that the extent to which 
an intellectual creature can attain to God 
as his natural end depends in the last an-



INTUITION 43 

alysis on the extent to which he can natur-
ally know God. What, then, is man's 
natural way of knowing God ? To answer 
this let us scan, at least for a moment, the 
process by which man knows anything. 
When a man is born into this world, his 
mind is a blank, a tablet in which nothing 
is written. Natural knowledge has its be-
ginning in the senses. The noblest of the 
senses, the faculty which with least trouble 
gives us the greatest and most varied 
knowledge of the world about us, is the 
sense of sight. Perhaps because of the 
excellence of this sense, the terms with 
which we describe its acts have come to 
be applied to every act of knowing, wheth-
er of the sensuous or the supersensuous 
order. When a man understands a thing 
he is accustomed to say that he sees it. 
This application of the term seeing to an 
intellectual act is not, however, a mere 
metaphor, but is more or less af ter the 
manner of an analogy. Just as in the sen-
tient order there is the faculty of seeing 
and its proper object, and when the fac-
ulty and the object come into proper rela-
tion, sight or vision results; so also in the 



44 OUR LIFE OF GRACE 

supersensuous sphere, in the realm of the 
spiritual, there is the intellect, which is 
really the faculty of spiritual or intellectual 
sight, and there is the proper object of this 
faculty, and when the faculty and the ob-
ject come into proper relation, the result is 
intellectual sight or vision. And as vision is 
the most noble and highest form of sensu-
ous knowledge, so intuition or intellectual 
vision is the noblest and highest form of 
spiritual knowledge. Intuition is superior 
as a way of knowing to either reasoning 
or faith. 

In our present life on earth the proper 
object of the intellect is the essence of ma-
terial things. When from the data supplied 
by the senses the intellect has abstracted 
the essence of a material thing, that es-
sence is as truly the immediate object of 
vision of the intellect as the material thing 
itself is the immediate object of the sense 
of sight. Now if the immediate proper ob-
ject of the intellect in this life is the es-
sences of material things, we might be led 
to believe that God, who is wholly spiritual 
and immaterial, cannot be known by us on 



MEDIATE KNOWLEDGE 45 

earth. This conclusion would be inescap-
able if immediate knowledge were the 
only kind of knowledge possible for the 
human intellect. But besides immediate 
knowledge our intellect is capable of medi-
ate knowledge. Immediate knowledge re-
sults when the intellect as the eye of the 
mind directly sees its object; mediate 
knowledge is acquired when from the 
knowledge of things known by direct and 
immediate vision the mind rises to a 
knowledge of things that it does not and 
cannot see. A sense faculty by its very 
nature can have only immediate knowl-
edge; it is one of the excellences of the 
intellect, on the other hand, that it can 
know both mediately and immediately. It 
is because of this double power of the 
intellect that we can have natural knowl-
edge of God. 

Let us take an example of how from 
immediate knowledge of visible things we 
arrive at mediate knowledge of God. For 
instance, I gaze at a beautiful flower; and 
as I gaze my mind reflects that the flower 
is an effect which must have a cause. Now 



46 OUR LIFE OF GRACE 

the cause of the flower must be either an 
effect from another cause or else self-
existent. No matter how fa r back I push 
the series of effects and causes, I must 
say of any given cause that it, too, began 
to be and owes its existence to another, or 
it is uncaused. My mind sees that an infi-
nite series of causes and effects is a contra-
diction in terms and is forced to conceive 
a self-existent Being Who is the cause of 
the flower and of all other things that 
began to be. An uncaused being must have 
within itself the reason and explanation of 
its own existence. Thus is evolved the no-
tion of necessary, infinite being. By ascrib-
ing to this First Cause in an eminent mode 
all the perfections we see in the world 
about us, and by denying to this Being all 
the imperfections we see in the world, we 
come to a true and certain, if limited 
knowledge of the First Cause, who is God. 
We begin with immediate knowledge of 
sensible created things and by means of 
these we arrive at mediate knowledge of 
God. This is the natural way of knowing 
God. Though such knowledge is absolutely 
valid and trustworthy and exceedingly 



KNOWING BY IMAGES 47 

noble and useful, it is—in view of the 
infinite knowableness of God—very, very 
imperfect knowledge of God. 

Theologians teach that our natural 
method of knowing God in this life is in 
principle, though of course not in exact 
detail, the natural mode by which any 
creature knows God; that is, that the 
essence of God unlike a created essence 
can never be naturally the immediate ob-
ject of intellectual vision of created minds. 
The natural mode by which all existing 
creatures know God, so the Church teach-
es, is through the medium of finite being. 
The two reasons St. Thomas advances to 
explain why this must be so are founded 
on the simple truth that the creature is 
always finite whereas God is infinite. The 
first of these reasons runs as follows: 
knowledge can exist only when the knowft 
thing is in some manner in the knowing 
subject. But for all creatures the natural 
way for the known thing to be in the know-
ing subject is by means of an image or 
likeness or species. Since God is an infinite 
Being, no image of Him—which would 



48 OUR LIFE OF GRACE 

have to be created and therefore finite 
reality—can ever adequately represent 
Him as He is. Hence any vision we should 
have by means of an image of God would 
fall short of vision of God Himself.* You 
may ask why it is that for all creatures the 
known thing (in natural knowledge) must 
be in the knowing subject af ter the man-
ner of an image. The answer is not hard 
to discover. Since God is the First Cause of 
all things, all things can be said to be in 

* In regard to the question whether in the act of seeing God face to face an image of any kind is formed in the mind of the creature, it may be well to call the attention of students of philosophy to a difference of opinion between St. Thomas and Suar-ez. Accarding to St. Thomas no image is impressed on the human mind or generated within it, i.e., there is neither a species impressa, nor a species expressa. Suarez agrees there is no species impressa; but dis-agrees as to a species expressa. Even in knowing God by intuition the human mind does not have an infinite knowledge of God; the mind of God and the mind of the creature do not coalesce into one; the human mind must act with a finite, personal act, if there is to be human consciousness distinct from di-vine consciousness. This act of knowing God, consid-ered on its subjective side, is a verbum mentale or species expressa. Even God, in the act of seeing his own nature, generates a Verbum or Species Expres-sa. The perfection of the act of knowing is in no way diminished by saying it takes place by means of a species expressa, for this species is nothing else than the spiritual act by which the intellect is aware it is seeing God.—EDITOR. 



FINITE RECEPTIVITY 49 

Him as in their First Cause. In His own 
essence God sees and knows all things. 
This mode of knowledge necessarily be-
longs to God alone, for He and He only is 
the First Cause of all things. This mode of 
knowing is closed to all creatures. There 
remain then only two ways by which the 
known thing can be in the knowing sub-
ject when the subject is a creature, viz., 
by actual physical inherence and by an 
image or species. Since the first of these 
two methods would lead to absurdity (as 
if the ocean could be in the mind of a 
child who looks upon it), the presence of 
the known thing in the knowing subject 
must be by way of image or species. 

A second reason proposed by St. Thomas 
to show that no creature can by nature 
have immediate knowledge of God is 
founded on the principle: quidquid recipitur 
ad modum recipientis recipitur. In plain 
English this means that whatever is re-
ceived is received according to the nature 
of the recipient. We need not take time to 
show that this principle is itself a resolu-
tion of the principle of causality. Since 



50 OUR LIFE OF GRACE 

God by His essence is subsistent, necessary 
being and since all creatures are contin-
gent, in any kind of natural immediate 
knowledge God would be received into the 
knowing creature through a contingent 
mode; and God received through a con-
tingent mode is not really God at all. 
Hence St. Thomas concludes no created 
mind naturally has an immediate knowl-
edge of God. 

It is of faith that all the intellectual 
creatures we know of, i.e., men and angels, 
do not have naturally, immediate vision of 
God. The question arises, however, wheth-
er God could create a being so exalted that 
by its natural cognitive faculty it would be 
able to know God directly. To this question 
Ripalda and a very few others give an 
affirmative answer. Against this opinion 
is arrayed the great majority of Catholic 
theologians. St. Thomas, indeed, argues 
only that neither men nor angels can have 
immediate knowledge of God, but his ar-
guments are founded on the very nature of 
creatures and are applicable to every con-
ceivable creature. Pohle states that the 



DAZZLING SPLENDOR 51 

proposition that no creatable intellect can 
naturally have direct vision of God, enjoys 
the certainty of a theological conclusion. 

C h a s m b e t w e e n Natura l and Supernatura l 
Here is where the supernatural bursts 

upon us in all its dazzling splendor. God 
has destined man not to a natural but to 
a supernatural end. The immediate object 
of the natural intellectual vision of any 
creature must be finite. And yet, in ele-
vating man to a supernatural end, God has 
destined him for the beatific vision, i.e., 
immediate intellectual knowledge of the 
divine essence itself. This truth, however 
staggering to our minds, is clearly and 
vividly taught us by God Himself in His 
revealed word. St. John says, "We shall be 
like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." 1 
St. Paul, contrasting the knowledge we 
have of God in this life with what we 
shall have in the next, says, "We see 
(God) now through a glass, in a dark 
manner; but then face to face." 2 This stu-

1 I St. John III, 2. 2 I Cor. XIII, 12. 



52 OUR LIFE OF GRACE 

pendous truth, clearly revealed in Scrip-
ture, has ever been firmly guarded and up-
held by the Church throughout the ages. 
Yes, not any image or shadow or likeness 
of God, but the infinite, eternal, subsistent 
essence of God is the direct and immediate 
object of vision of all men who successfully 
attain their last end. 

It must be evident to even the dullest of 
us that the difference between the knowl-
edge of God that a created intellect ac-
quires by its natural mode of knowing Him 
—through the medium of a finite reality— 
and the knowledge of God it acquires by 
immediate vision of His infinite majesty is 
so vast, so utterly incomprehensible that it 
almost paralyzes the mind to try to realize 
it. Moreover, since knowledge is the meas-
ure of love, supernatural love of God and 
the joy and happiness of possessing Him 
must bear a worthy proportion to beatific 
knowledge. St. Paul refers to the impo-
tence of the human mind to appreciate the 
excellence of our supernatural end when 
he says: "Eye hath not seen, ear hath not 
heard, neither hath it entered into the 



COMPARISONS 53 

mind of man to conceive what God hath 
prepared for those who love Him" ?3 How 
shall we compare by any definite ratio 
man's natural with his supernatural end? 
Shall we say that the natural knowledge 
of God of which the most perfect creature 
is capable when compared to the beatific 
vision of God is as the light of a candle 
to the overwhelming light of the sun? 
Shall we say that man's supernatural end 
is ten or a hundred or a thousand or a 
million or a billion times as great as his 
natural end ? Provided we hold fast to the 
truth that the creature remains always a 
creature, always distinct from God, it 
seems impossible to exaggerate the incal-
culable difference between the natural and 
the supernatural end of man. 

In our almost futile attempt to picture 
in a faint way the vastness of our super-
natural end we may find help in another 
illustration. The sun is some ninety million 
miles away from us. Yet astronomers tell 
us that our distance from the sun bears the 
same ratio to our distance from the nearest 

3 I Cor. I I , 9. 



54 OUR LIFE OF GRACE 

star as four inches bear to a mile. If this 
is our distance from the nearest star, how 
shall we count the miles to the farthest 
one ? Again, in making its orbit about the 
sun, our earth travels something less than 
six hundred million miles. To travel this 
distance the earth takes one year; light 
travels the same distance in less than an 
hour. If the speed of light is such that it 
travels this immense distance in less than 
an hour, think of how far light travels in 
a year. Yet when we get outside our solar 
system and begin to deal with inter-stellar 
measurements, the distances are so tre-
mendously greater than anything we have 
experience of that astronomers are forced 
to use as their unit of measurement the 
light year, i.e., the distance light travels 
in three hundred and sixty-five days. And 
as if this were not enough, trustworthy 
astronomers tell us that there may be stars 
so fa r away from us that, notwithstanding 
the age of our planet, the light of these 
stars has not yet had time to reach us. In 
comparison with such space as this, our 
huge earth shrinks to the size of a little 
grain of sand. Caeli enarrant gloriam Dei. 



FUNCTION OF GRACE 55 

May it not be that one of the lessons God 
would teach us with His stars is the lesson 
of the difference between our natural and 
our supernatural end? 

T h e Funct ion of Grace 
Now what is it that so transforms and 

elevates human nature that it attains in-
stead of a natural, a supernatural end? 
The answer is, grace. Our Lord Himself 
gives us a rule by which to judge of the 
worth of men and things: "By their fruits 
you shall know them." In other words, we 
can know the excellence of a cause from 
the excellence of its effects. If, then, we 
would perceive the nature and dignity of 
grace, we must see it in relation to the 
result it produces. Since grace brings it 
about that the direct object of the human 
intellect becomes, in the next life, the In-
finite Being, we ought to realize that grace 
must have about it something of the di-
vine and the infinite. Grace is that myster-
ious divine power which takes hold of a 
rational creature and elevates it so fa r 
above its own nature that it acquires a new 
mode of being and a new mode of acting 



56 OUR LIFE OF GRACE 

that bear an adequate proportion to the 
surpassing excellence of its supernatural 
end. Grace is the means by which God in 
His infinite wisdom and power bridges in 
a way the void between the finite and the 
infinite; for though a soul in grace still 
remains a finite being, it participates, 
nevertheless, in the nature of infinite being. 

T h e Nature of Grace 
With all this as a preparation, let us 

come now to consider grace itself. The 
word grace in its broadest sense means 
simply a favor. In its strict, orthodox, 
Catholic sense, grace is a supernatural gift 
bestowed by God on a rational creature 
as the means to a supernatural end. There 
are two points of this definition that need 
to be emphasized. First, grace is supernat-
ural ; it is above the essence, power, need, 
and end of the whole creation. Second, 
it is a gift—something to which the crea-
ture can have no right or claim whatsoever. 
It is an absolutely gratuitous bestowal by 
God. The two qualities we should associate 
therefore, with all kinds of grace are su-
pernaturalness and gratuity. 



THE STATE OF GRACE 57 

That there are several kinds of grace is 
a fact, I trust, that all of you know. At 
this point the recollection of a principle 
we have already established will give us a 
cue to two kinds of grace. We have seen 
that a being attains its end by its acts and 
that the acts of a being follow the nature 
of a being so that between the nature of a 
being, the acts of a being, and the end of 
a being there must be a real proportion. 
Hence a creature in its natural state by its 
natural acts attains a natural end. Now in 
elevating the end of man to a supernatural 
plane, God has wrought a corresponding 
elevation of the nature and the acts of 
man, so that they bear a real proportion 
to man's glorious end. That grace which 
elevates the nature of man is called habit-
ual grace; that grace which elevates the 
acts of man is called actual grace. Let us 
first consider the former. 

T h e State of Grace 
From the pronouncements of the Coun-

cil of Trent and from the common teaching 
of theologians we may define habitual 
grace as a supernatural quality intrinsical-



58 OUR LIFE OF GRACE 

ly and permanently inhering in the es-
sence of the soul through which we are 
made sharers of the divine nature. An 
analysis of this definition will bring us 
much light. First, habitual grace is a qual-
ity and not a substance, as all qualities 
in creatures are accidents, not substances. 
Since grace is an accident, its whole nature 
is to be in alio and not in se, i.e. it is in a 
creature as in a subject and does not anni-
hilate the created nature. This reveals a 
very important truth. Grace is not a sub-
stantial reality existing in itself, entirely 
apart from and independent of the natural 
order. No; the truth is f a r otherwise. Grace 
posits and presumes beings previously ex-
isting (by a priority at least of order if 
not of time) in the natural order in which 
it inheres. The whole purpose of grace is 
to elevate the created nature. Hence the 
supernatural and the natural are not two 
distinct substances united by some loose 
juxtaposition. Rather, the natural is the 
substance or subject in which the super-
natural or grace as an accident or quality 
inheres. The fact, then, that grace inheres 
in the soul af ter the manner of a quality 



TRANSFIGURATION 59 

reveals another very important truth. 
Though grace elevates the soul fa r above 
its natural state and produces a great 
change in it, that change is not a substan-
tial one. Grace is a supernatural perfection 
which elevates without substantially alter-
ing the nature in which it inheres. In other 
words, the created nature, under the influ-
ence of grace, does not become a portion 
of the eternal substance of God, but re-
mains a distinct substance, existing of its 
own right as a subject of its own acts. 

Secondly, it is the distinguishing mark 
of habitual grace that it inheres in the 
very essence of the soul, whereas actual 
grace inheres in the faculties of the soul. 
Yes, habitual grace inheres in the essence 
of the soul and perfects the soul in the 
order of being. Habitual grace therefore 
perfects the entity of the soul and not its 
operations. Because habitual grace per-
fects the entity of the soul and because the 
entity of the soul is enduring, it follows 
that it is of the nature of habitual grace to 
abide permanently in the soul. Once habit-
ual grace is infused into the soul, its na-



60 OUR LIFE OF GRACE 

ture is to abide there forever unless driven 
out by mortal sin. By saying that grace 
intrinsically inheres in the soul, the Coun-
cil of Trent makes it clear that habitual 
grace is a reality that transfigures the soul 
interiorly and that it is not some exterior 
thing that is outwardly imputed to the 
soul. 

Finally, the definition is completed by 
the statement of the first and essential ef-
fect of grace. The function of habitual 
grace is to make us, in the words of St. 
Peter, "partakers of the divine nature." 4 
I wonder if we ever stop to realize when 
we hear these rather familiar words just 
what their tremendous import is. By grace 
we are made partakers of the divine na-
ture. We, mere finite beings, by the mys-
terious liberality of God, participate in His 
infinite nature. According to Catholic tra-
dition, this participation is not only moral 
but physical, that is, it consists not only 
in a certain imitation of divine perfections, 
but also in a perfection real in itself by 

4 II St. Peter I, 4. 



SHARERS OF DIVINE NATURE 61 

which as to essence and faculties we are 
rendered like unto God Himself. This par-
ticipation is formal and not merely virtual. 
A formal participation is that by which 
the participated is found in the partici-
pant in the same manner as in the origi-
nal, though in a different grade. That 
participation is called virtual by which the 
participated thing is found in the partici-
pant in a mode diverse from that in which 
it is found in the original. Now grace 
makes man radically fit to know God im-
mediately and intuitively as God knows 
Himself, although of course, since the cre-
ature forever remains a creature, not in 
the same grade as that in which God 
knows Himself. In order to avoid all dan-
ger of pantheism we must emphasize the 
fact that this participation is accidental 
and not substantial. The divine nature is 
not communicated to us substantially as it 
is to the Word in His eternal generation 
from the Father, nor yet personally as it is 
to the human nature of Christ by means 
of the hypostatic union; but accidentally, 
in the sense that our souls are transfigured 
by divine influence—not, indeed, that they 



62 OUR LIFE OF GRACE 

become one substance with God. The soul is 
made deiform or deific somewhat as iron 
heated white hot, though still remaining 
iron, is made like unto fire and has some of 
the properties of fire. Briefly we may say 
that we participate in the divine nature 
physically and not merely morally, form-
ally and not only virtually, but accidental-
ly and not substantially. The divine nature 
which is in God substantially and neces-
sarily, is in us accidentally and by His 
free gift. 

Logically following from the truth that 
by grace we are participators in the divine 
nature is another truth of equal grandeur. 
For the reason that we are participators in 
the divine nature we are able to be called 
and are the sons of God. Because the di-
vine nature is in us gratuitously and acci-
dentally we are the adoptive and not the 
natural sons of God. The Word alone is 
naturally the Son of God because of His 
eternal generation in which the whole sub-
stance of the Father is communicated to 
Him. By nature no creature has the rela-
tion of son to his Creator. The essential 



SONS OF GOD 63 

natural relation of every creature to God 
is that of servant. Do but recall the differ-
ence here on earth between the servant 
and the son in a household and then try 
to conceive the difference between being 
the servant and the son of the Infinite 
King of Kings. It is the part of the one to 
serve at table; it is the part of the other 
to sit at table with the father and be 
served. 

Though we are only adoptive sons of 
God, this adoption is of a more, excellent 
kind than adoption by an earthly father. 
Only he is the true son of his father who 
receives his nature from his father. When 
a man wishes to adopt a child as his own, 
he fulfills the conditions required by law. 
The result is that in all things the adopted 
son is considered as if he were the natural 
son of the adopting father and has all the 
rights that the natural son would have. 
Yet natural son he is not and can never 
be, for the fact remains always that he 
received his life and nature from a person 
other than his adopting father. Between 
such earthly adoption as this and our adop-



64 OUR LIFE OF GRACE 

tion by God there is no true parallel, for 
in adopting us God not only gives us the 
dignity and the rights of sons insofar as 
these can be given to a creature, but He 
confers His own divine nature on us by 
grace in such a way that we enter into a 
union with God incalculably above the 
right and natural power of any creature. 

I wonder if we Catholics ever seriously 
attempt to understand the majesty of a 
soul in grace. Do we not all too often by 
slovenly habits of thought, come to regard 
the state of grace as mere freedom from 
mortal sin? If we do, the vicious flaw in 
this attitude of mind is that we see as a 
mere absence or negation that which is a 
rapturous and abounding life. We should 
conceive of the state of grace not so much 
as the absence of sin as the presence of a 
divine reality. Nor is it correct, even in a 
negative way, to define the state of grace 
as freedom from mortal sin. A new-born 
babe, being incapable of a human act, is 
incapable of actual sin. Hence such a child 
is free from mortal sin, but it most cer-
tainly is not in the state of grace until it 



GOD'S MASTERPIECE 65 

has been baptized. Let us learn that the 
true antithesis is not between sin and 
grace, but between nature and grace. Pic-
ture the most perfect natural being you 
can, a being fulfilling to the letter the 
natural law, tending without any deviation 
to the natural end set for it by God. Now 
in comparison with such a natural creature 
place a soul in grace; the incomparable 
difference between the two successfully 
challenges any adequate expression in 
human language. 

Perhaps an illustration will help a bit. 
The greatest of all creatures is Mary the 
Mother of God. She is God's masterpiece, 
the supreme achievement of His grace. 
Recall that she is above the seraphim and 
cherubim; she is nearest the eternal throne; 
she is the Mother of our Creator, the Mir-
ror of Justice, the Seat of Wisdom, the 
Gate of Heaven, the Queen of Angels and 
of Saints. Eminent theologians, sane and 
conservative in their opinions, teach us 
that God most probably conferred on Mary 
in the first moment of her existence a 
greater grade of grace than on all the 



66 OUR LIFE OF GRACE 

myriads of the nine choirs of angels, than 
on all the apostles and martyrs and con-
fessors and virgins, than on all the other 
members of the human race; in short, tha t 
Mary is richer in grace than all other 
creatures combined. Think, if you can, of 
how fa r Mary is above the least soul in 
the state of grace. Try to measure the 
distance between the Mother of God and 
the last and least of the children of God. 
Clearly this distance is so imposing, so 
nearly immeasurable as to be well-nigh 
beyond the grasp of the human mind. Yet 
the sobering truth remains that the dis-
tance between Mary and the least soul in 
grace—immense and awe-inspiring as it 
truly is—is almost nothing when compared 
to the distance between the least soul in 
grace and the highest angel in the state 
of nature. To say this, is not to dishonor 
Mary but to honor her most perfectly by 
estimating at its true value that which 
makes her what she is, viz., the grace of 
God. The reason this comparison is correct 
is that Mary and the least soul in grace 
have one essential thing in common: they 
participate in the divine nature. On the 



LEAST SOUL IN GRACE 67 

other hand, the difference between the 
least soul in grace and the highest creature 
in its natural state is that the latter lives 
strictly within the natural boundaries of 
finite being, while the former is quick with 
an infinite life. A creature by nature is 
finite; a creature in grace, though always 
a creature distinct from God, has about it 
something of the infinite. 

We have seen that it is peculiar to ha-
bitual grace that it inheres in the essence 
of the soul and perfects the soul in being. 
Now every living being acts through its 
faculties. Since in the natural order the 
faculties flow from the essence or nature 
of the soul and are the immediate prin-
ciples of its actions, we might expect that 
in the supernatural order there would be 
something like supernatural faculties flow-
ing from the supernatural being of the 
soul. Such is the case. Whenever habitual 
grace is infused into the soul, not only 
does it elevate the soul to a supernatural 
state of being, but it also endows the soul 
with supernatural habits from which the 
soul can elicit supernatural acts, just as in 



68 OUR LIFE OF GRACE 

the natural order it elicits natural acts 
from its natural habits. These super-
natural habits are of two kinds: those 
that have God as their object; those that 
have the morality of our acts as their ob-
ject. The former, three in number, are the 
theological virtues of faith, hope, and 
and charity. As to the latter, since all the 
moral virtues may ultimately be reduced 
to the four cardinal virtues, it is common-
ly believed that with the infusion of ha-
bitual grace not only the three theological 
virtues but also the four cardinal virtues 
of justice, temperance, fortitude, and pru-
dence are also divinely and supernaturally 
infused. These infused virtues, then, the 
theological and the moral, are so many 
supernatural habits of the soul by which 
it is proximately disposed to act. 

A c t u a l Grace 
Let us recall a few simple truths. A 

being attains its end by its acts. No crea-
ture is its acts but is really distinct from 
them, and before they are elicited must 
be in potency to them. A thing in potency 
cannot reduce itself to act but must be 



ACTUAL GRACE 69 

reduced to act by an agent extrinsic to it-
self. Hence in the natural order, the coop-
eration or assistance of that Being Who is 
pure act is necessary for any creature to 
be able to act. This truth has an analagous 
application in the supernatural order. 
Habitual grace infused into the essence of 
the soul constitutes the soul a supernatural 
remote principle of supernatural action. 
The infused virtues, which always accom-
pany habitual grace, are so many super-
natural powers of a supernatural principle 
(the soul in grace) and are the proximate 
principles of the soul's supernatural activ-
ities. But just as in the natural order so 
also in the supernatural, before a power 
can act, it must be reduced to act by a 
concursus of that Being Who is pure act. 
Since we are dealing, however, with the 
supernatural order, the natural assistance 
by which God moves all creatures to act 
is not sufficient. We must have a concursus 
that is proportionate to the supernatural 
state of the soul; we must have a super-
natural assistance. This supernatural con-
cursus of God is actual grace. Actual grace 
differs from habitual grace in several im-



70 OUR LIFE OF GRACE 

portant points. Both are equally super-
natural as wholly undue to any creature. 
Habitual grace, however, resides in the 
essence of the soul and perfects the soul 
in being. Actual grace resides in the fac-
ulties of the soul and perfects the soul in 
act. Habitual grace is by its nature per-
manent and persists as an entitative habit. 
Actual grace is transient, and perishes 
with the act it helps to perform. 

I should be teaching heresy if I were to 
leave you under the impression that actual 
grace is merely a supernatural divine con-
cursus. To say actual grace concurs with 
every supernatural act is to understate the 
truth. Its action is not only concursive but 
precursive as well. It goes before the act 
of the creature and by enlightening the 
mind and strengthening and alluring the 
will it first makes the act of the creature 
morally possible; and then, by its con-
cursive influence, it makes the act of the 
creature physically possible. Thus grace is 
said to prevent as well as to concur. If 
now we take a comprehensive glace at the 
relation of grace to the soul, we see that 



THE LIGHT OF GLORY 71 

habitual grace inheres in the essence of 
the soul and perfects it in the order of 
being by elevating it to a permanent mode 
of existence fa r above its merely natural 
state. Concomitant with the coming of 
habitual grace into the soul is the infusion 
of the three theological virtues as super-
natural habits of the soul. Finally, actual 
grace supplies that which is morally and 
physically necessary for a creature in a 
supernatural state through its supernat-
ural habits to elicit truly supernatural acts. 

By living worthily this life of grace on 
earth we can merit, when our time of trial 
is over, the ravishing joy and perfect hap-
piness that come from beholding God as 
He is. Yet even a soul equipped with all 
the powers of grace that it has in this life 
is still incapable of that act so fa r above 
the nature of any creature—the immediate 
vision of God. It is of faith that when the 
time comes for the soul to behold the face 
of God, a new habit must be infused into 
the intellect, strengthening it and perfect-
ing it so as to enable it to see an infinite 
object. This new habit is called lumen 



72 OUR LIFE OF GRACE 

gloriae, the light of glory. It is defined as 
a supernatural habit inhering in the intel-
lect, elevating it and strengthening it for 
the intuitive vision of God. The Fathers of 
the Church commonly understand verse 
10 of Psalm 85: "In Thy light we shall see 
light," as a reference to the light of glory. 
Moreover, even though, with the aid of the 
light of glory, we see God face to face and, 
therefore, know Him in the same perfect 
manner in which He knows Himself, we 
cannot know Him in the same degree or 
grade as that in which He knows Himself. 
We do not comprehend God; that is, we 
do not understand Him to an absolutely 
perfect extent. This is where we reach 
the limit beyond which no finite being 
can pass. No creature—not even Mary— 
can comprehend God. The Three Divine 
Persons alone perfectly comprehend the 
divine nature in all its limitless perfection. 

Original Sin 
This discussion of grace would not be 

complete without at least a few words 
about the historical place of grace in our 
Catholic religion. It is of faith that all 



THE SIN OF ADAM 73 

the members of the human race are de-
scendants of Adam, the common father of 
us all; It is also of faith that before Adam 
sinned, he had been elevated to a super-
natural state. Whether Adam was first 
created in a natural state and then later 
elevated to the state of grace or whether 
the acts of creation and elevation were 
simultaneous so that Adam did not exist 
until he existed as a being in grace is a 
disputed question. Since the time of St. 
Thomas, however, the latter opinion, viz., 
that Adam was elevated as soon as he was 
created, has been the common teaching 
of theologians. When we say Adam was 
the father of us all, we must get clearly 
in mind that he was not merely the first 
of our race in time, but was also by the 
plan of God the head of the race as well. 
Somewhat as all the members of a modern 
business corporation are to a certain ex-
tent answerable and responsible for the 
official acts of the head of the corporation, 
so similarly but to a much greater extent 
we as members of the race of which Adam 
is head and father feel for better or for 
worse, for weal or woe, the consequences 



74 OUR LIFE OF GRACE 

of his acts. Unfortunately, it is the woe we 
feel. Remember that when Adam was 
elevated to the state of grace, it was not 
he merely personally and individually that 
was so elevated—the whole human race 
in the person of its head was elevated to 
the supernatural state and destined to a 
supernatural end. Likewise, when God 
made a test of Adam's obedience and fidel-
ity, it was not merely Adam personally, 
but the entire race in the person of its 
head that was on trial. Furthermore, when 
Adam fell, it was the whole of the human 
race that fell in him, its head, and the 
consequence of Adam's sin has been passed 
on to all his children. 

Now what was the consequence of 
Adam's sin? It was that he lost for him-
self and all his children the heritage of 
supernatural life. The sin of Adam, which 
was personal in him, became original sin 
in his descendants. If Adam had remained 
faithful to God, his children would have 
been born in the state of grace, though of 
course each one could have lost grace by 
personal sin in his own life. Do we see now 



LAW OF SOLIDARITY 75 

what happened as the result of the sin of 
our first parents? In Adam's fall from 
grace the whole human race fell from 
grace. Though we still remained by the 
unchanged decree of God directed and 
ordered to a supernatural end, we had 
lost through the crime of our head the 
only means in the providence of God that 
could lead us to a supernatural end—the 
state of grace. Consequently, when each 
human being comes into the world, he is 
born, not in the state of grace, but in the 
state of nature, devoid of grace. Now this 
absence of grace in every soul as it comes 
into the world is not a negation but a 
privation ; it is the absence of perfection 
where perfection strictly ought to be ; it 
is evil ; and since it is in the moral order, 
it is moral evil ; it is sin. In this lies the 
essence of original sin; it is the lack of 
the wedding garment of grace that should 
adorn our soul and would adorn it were it 
not for the sin of Adam, our head. This, 
as you see, was the plight of the human 
race, destined to a supernatural end, held 
accountable for reaching that end, yet 
hopelessly unable to do so because in 



76 OUR LIFE OF GRACE 

Adam's fall it had lost grace—the means 
to the end. 

J e s u s Christ, the N e w A d a m 
God, if he had so willed, could have par-

doned outright the sin of Adam and could 
have resored the human race to the super-
natural state from which it had fallen. 
Infinite wisdom, however, chose to do oth-
erwise. In an unsearchable mystery of 
of justice and love God decreed that His 
only begotten Son, His Eternal Word, 
should enter into personal union with 
human nature, should be born of a virgin, 
should live a human life, and should die 
the terrible death of the Cross to repair 
the consequences of Adam's sin. The Gos-
pels are the account of the minute fidelity 
with which the Incarnate Son carried out 
the decree of His Father. They are the 
story of how that which was lost by Adam 
was regained by Jesus Christ. But though 
Christ our Savior restored to us the super-
natural heritage which Adam had de-
stroyed, He did so according to his own 
plan. We have seen that as a result of 
Adam's sin all men are born deprived of 



THE NEW ADAM 77 

grace. This condition Christ allowed to 
remain. Though the race fell as a whole 
and though Christ redeemed the race as a 
whole, yet He willed that the Redemption 
should be communicated and made effec-
tive to each member of the race individu-
ally. To do this—to provide that the whole 
aggregate of grace that He had merited 
might be conveyed to each individual 
member of the race—Christ instituted the 
Sacraments, which, in the words of the 
Council of Trent, are so many channels 
through which grace flows into the soul. 

Each Sacrament has its own proper 
function. Baptism is the Sacrament of re-
generation, in which having been born 
once to nature, we are born a second time 
to grace. In this Sacrament the whole di-
vine life of grace is planted in our soul. 
By Confirmation supernatural life is ele-
vated to maturity ; whereas we were chil-
dren, we become men and soldiers. The 
Holy Eucharist is the divine food which 
nourishes and sustains supernatural life 
somewhat as material food sustains the 
body. Extreme Unction is the Sacrament 



78 OUR LIFE OF GRACE 

which fits the Christian for bon voyage in 
his going from this world to the next. 
Marriage and Orders are the social Sac-
raments. The former is God's way of secur-
ing in a holy and noble manner the con-
tinuance of the life of the human race on 
earth. By means of the latter God perpetu-
ates the very life of the Church by provid-
ing an undying priesthood to rule, to teach, 
and to sanctify the faithful. 

There is one other Sacrament, that of 
Penance, which is conspicuously the Sac-
rament of mercy. We have seen that in 
Baptism an entirely new principle of life 
is infused into the soul whereby it is ele-
vated to a supernatural state of being and 
acting fa r above its natural state. Once 
this glorious new life of grace has been 
given to us, is it possible to lose it again? 
Alas, in His agony in the garden Christ 
saw all too clearly what was to happen. 
One single mortal sin kills the supernatural 
life of the soul just as surely as the guillo-
tine kills the life of the body. It is no so-
called pious exaggeration but, solemn, 
dreadful truth that a soul in mortal sin is 



DEATH AND LIFE 79 

a dead soul—living and functioning, it is 
true, in its natural life, but dead to the 
supernatural life of grace. A soul in mortal 
sin is in a much worse state than a soul 
merely in original sin; for while a soul in 
original sin lacks proportion for its super-
natural end, it does not deserve, and, there-
fore, God in His justice could not, accord-
ing to the common opinion, inflict positive 
pain and torture upon it merely because of 
original sin. The case against the soul in 
mortal sin is much different. Not by the 
sin of origin from a fallen race, but by its 
own deliberate, perfectly-willed act of 
malice the soul in mortal sin has spurned 
and thrown away its supernatural life and 
has merited and deserved everlasting pun-
ishment in hell. Yet even for this extreme 
of hatred and rebellion Jesus Christ has 
provided a remedy. The Sacrament of 
Penance is a second plank after shipwreck, 
as it was called by the early Christians. 
This Sacrament is the ordinary means of 
regaining the state of grace for those who 
have lost it af ter Baptism. 



80 OUR LIFE OF GRACE 

T h e Mystery of Div ine Love 
This, then, is at least a glimpse at the 

dogma of grace as taught in the Catholic 
Church. As we ponder this amazing truth, 
the question naturally arises in our hear t : 
Why has God done thus? Why has He not 
left us in the peasant hovel of our natural' 
life instead of lifting us up to live as His 
own children in the mansions of His in-
finite glory? Why has He so ennobled us 
that instead of addressing us as servants 
He calls us friends and gods? To answer 
this is to attempt to explain the mystery of 
Infinite Love.