How Catholics Can Receive the Holy Spirit Again After Falling Away?

CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC Church building
Second EDITION

Part Three
LIFE IN CHRIST

SECTION 1
MAN'South VOCATION LIFE IN THE SPIRIT

CHAPTER 3
GOD'S Salvation: LAW AND GRACE

ARTICLE two
GRACE AND JUSTIFICATION

I. JUSTIFICATION

1987 The grace of the Holy Spirit has the power to justify u.s.a., that is, to cleanse us from our sins and to communicate to united states "the righteousness of God through religion in Jesus Christ" and through Baptism:³⁴

But if we have died with Christ, nosotros believe that nosotros shall likewise live with him. For we know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die once more; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died he died to sin, one time for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. Then you also must consider yourselves as dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.³⁵

1988 Through the power of the Holy Spirit we have part in Christ'south Passion by dying to sin, and in his Resurrection past beingness born to a new life; nosotros are members of his Body which is the Church building, branches grafted onto the vine which is himself:³⁶

[God] gave himself to us through his Spirit. By the participation of the Spirit, we become communicants in the divine nature. . . . For this reason, those in whom the Spirit dwells are divinized.³⁷

1989 The first piece of work of the grace of the Holy Spirit is conversion, effecting justification in accordance with Jesus' declaration at the beginning of the Gospel: "Repent, for the kingdom of sky is at mitt."³⁸ Moved by grace, man turns toward God and away from sin, thus accepting forgiveness and righteousness from on high. "Justification is not just the remission of sins, merely too the sanctification and renewal of the interior man.³⁹

1990 Justification detaches homo from sin which contradicts the honey of God, and purifies his heart of sin. Justification follows upon God's merciful initiative of offer forgiveness. It reconciles human with God. It frees from the enslavement to sin, and it heals.

1991 Justification is at the same time the acceptance of God'south righteousness through organized religion in Jesus Christ. Righteousness (or "justice") hither means the rectitude of divine dearest. With justification, religion, hope, and charity are poured into our hearts, and obedience to the divine will is granted us.

1992 Justification has been merited for us by the Passion of Christ who offered himself on the cross as a living victim, holy and pleasing to God, and whose blood has become the musical instrument of atonement for the sins of all men. Justification is conferred in Baptism, the sacrament of faith. It conforms us to the righteousness of God, who makes us inwardly just by the power of his mercy. Its purpose is the celebrity of God and of Christ, and the gift of eternal life:⁴⁰

Only at present the righteousness of God has been manifested autonomously from police, although the law and the prophets deport witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, they are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as an expiation by his claret, to be received by faith. This was to bear witness God'due south righteousness, considering in his divine forbearance he had passed over old sins; it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies him who has faith in Jesus.⁴¹

1993 Justification establishes cooperation between God'due south grace and human's freedom. On homo'due south part it is expressed past the assent of faith to the Word of God, which invites him to conversion, and in the cooperation of charity with the prompting of the Holy Spirit who precedes and preserves his assent:

When God touches human'due south heart through the illumination of the Holy Spirit, man himself is not inactive while receiving that inspiration, since he could reject it; and yet, without God's grace, he cannot by his own gratis will motion himself toward justice in God'due south sight.⁴²

1994 Justification is the most excellent work of God'southward love fabricated manifest in Christ Jesus and granted past the Holy Spirit. Information technology is the opinion of St. Augustine that "the justification of the wicked is a greater work than the creation of heaven and earth," because "heaven and earth will pass away simply the salvation and justification of the elect . . . will non pass away."⁴³ He holds besides that the justification of sinners surpasses the creation of the angels in justice, in that it bears witness to a greater mercy.

1995 The Holy Spirit is the master of the interior life. By giving birth to the "inner human being,"⁴⁴ justification entails the sanctification of his whole being:

But every bit you in one case yielded your members to impurity and to greater and greater iniquity, so now yield your members to righteousness for sanctification. . . . Simply now that yous have been prepare costless from sin and have get slaves of God, the return you lot get is sanctification and its cease, eternal life.⁴⁵

2. GRACE

1996 Our justification comes from the grace of God. Grace is favor, the free and undeserved help that God gives u.s. to answer to his call to become children of God, adoptive sons, partakers of the divine nature and of eternal life.⁴⁶

1997 Grace is a participation in the life of God. It introduces us into the intimacy of Trinitarian life: by Baptism the Christian participates in the grace of Christ, the Head of his Trunk. Every bit an "adopted son" he tin can henceforth call God "Father," in union with the only Son. He receives the life of the Spirit who breathes charity into him and who forms the Church.

1998 This vocation to eternal life is supernatural. Information technology depends entirely on God's complimentary initiative, for he lonely tin can reveal and give himself. It surpasses the power of human intellect and volition, as that of every other fauna.⁴⁷

1999 The grace of Christ is the gratuitous gift that God makes to usa of his ain life, infused by the Holy Spirit into our soul to heal it of sin and to sanctify it. Information technology is the sanctifying or deifying grace received in Baptism. It is in us the source of the piece of work of sanctification:⁴⁸

Therefore if whatsoever one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the onetime has passed abroad, behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself.⁴⁹

2000 Sanctifying grace is an habitual gift, a stable and supernatural disposition that perfects the soul itself to enable it to alive with God, to act past his love. Habitual grace, the permanent disposition to alive and deed in keeping with God's call, is distinguished from actual graces which refer to God'due south interventions, whether at the commencement of conversion or in the course of the work of sanctification.

2001 The preparation of man for the reception of grace is already a piece of work of grace. This latter is needed to arouse and sustain our collaboration in justification through faith, and in sanctification through charity. God brings to completion in us what he has begun, "since he who completes his work by cooperating with our will began by working so that we might will it:"⁵⁰

Indeed we also work, but we are just collaborating with God who works, for his mercy has gone earlier u.s.a.. It has gone before us and so that we may be healed, and follows united states of america so that once healed, we may be given life; it goes before u.s. and so that we may exist called, and follows us and then that we may exist glorified; it goes earlier usa and then that we may live devoutly, and follows united states and then that we may always live with God: for without him we tin exercise zip.⁵¹

2002 God'due south free initiative demands homo'due south gratuitous response, for God has created man in his image by conferring on him, forth with freedom, the power to know him and love him. The soul only enters freely into the communion of love. God immediately touches and directly moves the heart of man. He has placed in human a longing for truth and goodness that only he tin satisfy. The promises of "eternal life" answer, beyond all hope, to this desire:

If at the end of your very good works . . ., you rested on the seventh solar day, it was to foretell by the voice of your book that at the cease of our works, which are indeed "very good" since you have given them to u.s.a., we shall also rest in you on the sabbath of eternal life.⁵²

2003 Grace is first and foremost the souvenir of the Spirit who justifies and sanctifies us. Just grace also includes the gifts that the Spirit grants united states of america to acquaintance usa with his work, to enable us to collaborate in the salvation of others and in the growth of the Torso of Christ, the Church building. There are sacramental graces, gifts proper to the different sacraments. There are furthermore special graces, also chosen charisms subsequently the Greek term used past St. Paul and meaning "favor," "free gift," "do good."⁵³ Whatsoever their graphic symbol - sometimes it is extraordinary, such as the gift of miracles or of tongues - charisms are oriented toward sanctifying grace and are intended for the common good of the Church. They are at the service of charity which builds up the Church.⁵⁴

2004 Among the special graces ought to be mentioned the graces of state that accompany the exercise of the responsibilities of the Christian life and of the ministries within the Church:

Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, allow us apply them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; he who teaches, in his didactics; he who exhorts, in his exhortation; he who contributes, in liberality; he who gives assist, with zeal; he who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.⁵⁵

2005 Since it belongs to the supernatural society, grace escapes our feel and cannot exist known except by faith. We cannot therefore rely on our feelings or our works to conclude that we are justified and saved.⁵⁶ Withal, co-ordinate to the Lord's words "Thus you lot will know them by their fruits"⁵⁷ - reflection on God'south blessings in our life and in the lives of the saints offers us a guarantee that grace is at work in us and spurs united states on to an ever greater faith and an mental attitude of trustful poverty.

A pleasing analogy of this attitude is plant in the reply of St. Joan of Arc to a question posed equally a trap by her ecclesiastical judges: "Asked if she knew that she was in God'due south grace, she replied: 'If I am not, may it please God to put me in it; if I am, may it please God to go on me there.'"⁵⁸

III. MERIT

You are glorified in the assembly of your Holy Ones, for in crowning their merits you are crowning your ain gifts.⁵⁹

2006 The term "merit" refers in general to the recompense owed by a community or a society for the action of one of its members, experienced either as beneficial or harmful, deserving reward or penalty. Merit is relative to the virtue of justice, in conformity with the principle of equality which governs it.

2007 With regard to God, there is no strict right to whatever merit on the part of man. Between God and u.s.a. at that place is an immeasurable inequality, for nosotros have received everything from him, our Creator.

2008 The merit of human earlier God in the Christian life arises from the fact that God has freely chosen to associate homo with the work of his grace. The fatherly activeness of God is starting time on his own initiative, and then follows man's free interim through his collaboration, so that the merit of practiced works is to be attributed in the kickoff place to the grace of God, then to the faithful. Man's merit, moreover, itself is due to God, for his skillful actions continue in Christ, from the predispositions and assist given by the Holy Spirit.

2009 Filial adoption, in making u.s.a. partakers by grace in the divine nature, can bequeath true merit on u.s. as a upshot of God's gratuitous justice. This is our correct past grace, the full right of love, making us "co-heirs" with Christ and worthy of obtaining "the promised inheritance of eternal life."^lx The merits of our good works are gifts of the divine goodness.⁶¹ "Grace has gone before u.s.; now we are given what is due. . . . Our claim are God'due south gifts."⁶²

2010 Since the initiative belongs to God in the gild of grace, no one can merit the initial grace of forgiveness and justification, at the commencement of conversion. Moved by the Holy Spirit and by charity, we can then merit for ourselves and for others the graces needed for our sanctification, for the increase of grace and charity, and for the attainment of eternal life. Even temporal appurtenances similar health and friendship can be merited in accordance with God'southward wisdom. These graces and goods are the object of Christian prayer. Prayer attends to the grace nosotros demand for meritorious actions.

2011 The clemency of Christ is the source in us of all our merits before God. Grace, by uniting u.s.a. to Christ in active dear, ensures the supernatural quality of our acts and consequently their merit before God and before men. The saints take always had a lively awareness that their merits were pure grace.

After earth'due south exile, I hope to go and enjoy you lot in the fatherland, merely I do not desire to lay upward claim for heaven. I desire to work for your honey alone. . . . In the evening of this life, I shall appear before you with empty hands, for I practise not ask you, Lord, to count my works. All our justice is blemished in your eyes. I wish, then, to be clothed in your own justice and to receive from your love the eternal possession of yourself.⁶³

IV. CHRISTIAN HOLINESS

2012 "We know that in everything God works for skillful with those who love him . . . For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the get-go-born amid many brethren. And those whom he predestined he as well called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified."⁶⁴

2013 "All Christians in whatsoever state or walk of life are called to the fullness of Christian life and to the perfection of charity."⁶⁵ All are called to holiness: "Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect."⁶⁶

In order to attain this perfection the faithful should utilise the strength dealt out to them by Christ'due south gift, so that . . . doing the will of the Male parent in everything, they may wholeheartedly devote themselves to the glory of God and to the service of their neighbor. Thus the holiness of the People of God volition grow in fruitful affluence, every bit is clearly shown in the history of the Church building through the lives of and then many saints.⁶⁷

2014 Spiritual progress tends toward ever more intimate union with Christ. This spousal relationship is called "mystical" because it participates in the mystery of Christ through the sacraments - "the holy mysteries" - and, in him, in the mystery of the Holy Trinity. God calls us all to this intimate union with him, even if the special graces or extraordinary signs of this mystical life are granted just to some for the sake of manifesting the gratuitous souvenir given to all.

2015 The fashion of perfection passes by way of the Cross. There is no holiness without renunciation and spiritual battle.⁶⁸ Spiritual progress entails the ascesis and mortification that gradually lead to living in the peace and joy of the Beatitudes:

He who climbs never stops going from kickoff to beginning, through beginnings that have no end. He never stops desiring what he already knows.⁶⁹

2016 The children of our holy mother the Church rightly hope for the grace of last perseverance and the recompense of God their Father for the practiced works accomplished with his grace in communion with Jesus.^lxx Keeping the same rule of life, believers share the "blessed promise" of those whom the divine mercy gathers into the "holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of sky from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her married man."⁷¹

IN Brief

2017 The grace of the Holy Spirit confers upon us the righteousness of God. Uniting us by faith and Baptism to the Passion and Resurrection of Christ, the Spirit makes usa sharers in his life.

2018 Like conversion, justification has two aspects. Moved by grace, man turns toward God and away from sin, then accepts forgiveness and righteousness from on high.

2019 Justification includes the remission of sins, sanctification, and the renewal of the inner man.

2020 Justification has been merited for the states by the Passion of Christ. Information technology is granted us through Baptism. It conforms usa to the righteousness of God, who justifies us. Information technology has for its goal the celebrity of God and of Christ, and the gift of eternal life. It is the almost splendid work of God's mercy.

2021 Grace is the help God gives the states to respond to our vocation of becoming his adopted sons. Information technology introduces us into the intimacy of the Trinitarian life.

2022 The divine initiative in the work of grace precedes, prepares, and elicits the free response of man. Grace responds to the deepest yearnings of human being freedom, calls freedom to cooperate with it, and perfects freedom.

2023 Sanctifying grace is the gratis gift of his life that God makes to u.s.; it is infused by the Holy Spirit into the soul to heal information technology of sin and to sanctify it.

2024 Sanctifying grace makes u.s. "pleasing to God." Charisms, special graces of the Holy Spirit, are oriented to sanctifying grace and are intended for the common good of the Church. God also acts through many actual graces, to be distinguished from habitual grace which is permanent in united states of america.

2025 We can have merit in God'due south sight just because of God's costless program to associate man with the work of his grace. Merit is to be ascribed in the kickoff place to the grace of God, and secondly to human being'southward collaboration. Man's merit is due to God.

2026 The grace of the Holy Spirit tin confer true merit on usa, by virtue of our adoptive filiation, and in accord with God's complimentary justice. Charity is the principal source of merit in us before God.

2027 No ane can merit the initial grace which is at the origin of conversion. Moved by the Holy Spirit, we tin merit for ourselves and for others all the graces needed to reach eternal life, equally well as necessary temporal appurtenances.

2028 "All Christians . . . are called to the fullness of Christian life and to the perfection of clemency" (LG 40 § 2). "Christian perfection has merely one limit, that of having none" (St. Gregory of Nyssa, De vita Mos.:PG 44, 300D).

2029 "If whatever man would come after me, let him deny himself and take upwardly his cross and follow me" (Mt xvi:24).

34 Rom three:22; cf. 6:3-4.
35 Rom vi:eight-11.
36 Cf. 1 Cor 12; Jn 15:1-four.
37 St. Athanasius, Ep. Serap. i,24:PG 26,585 and 588.
38 Mt iv:17.
39 Quango of Trent (1547): DS 1528.
forty Cf. Quango of Trent (1547): DS 1529.
41 Rom three:21-26.
42 Quango of Trent (1547): DS 1525.
43 St. Augustine, In Jo. ev. 72,3:PL 35,1823.
44 Cf. Rom 7:22; Eph iii:sixteen.
45 Rom 6:nineteen,22.
46 Cf. Jn 1:12-18; 17:iii; Rom 8:14-17; 2 Pet one:3-4.
47 Cf. 1 Cor ii:7-9.
48 Cf. Jn four:14; seven:38-39.
49 two Cor 5:17-18.
50 St. Augustine, De gratia et libero arbitrio, 17:PL 44,901.
51 St. Augustine, De natura et gratia, 31:PL 44,264.
52 St. Augustine, Conf. xiii,36 51:PL 32,868; cf. Gen one:31.
53 Cf. LG 12.
54 Cf. 1 Cor 12.
55 Rom 12:half dozen-eight.
56 Cf. Council of Trent (1547): DS 1533-1534.
57 Mt 7:20.
58 Acts of the trial of St. Joan of Arc.
59 Roman Missal, Prefatio I de sanctis; Qui in Sanctorum concilio celebraris, et eorum coronando merita tua dona coronas, citing the "Dr. of grace," St. Augustine, En. in Ps. 102,7:PL 37,1321-1322.
60 Council of Trent (1547): DS 1546.
61 Cf. Council of Trent (1547): DS 1548.
62 St. Augustine, Sermo 298,4-v:PL 38,1367.
63 St. Thérèse of Lisieux, "Act of Offering" in Story of a Soul, tr. John Clarke (Washington DC: ICS, 1981), 277.
64 Rom 8:28-30.
65 LG 40 § 2.
66 Mt 5:48.
67 LG xl § 2.
68 Cf. 2 Tim 4.
69 St. Gregory of Nyssa, Hom. in Deceit. 8:PG 44,941C.
seventy Cf. Council of Trent (1547): DS 1576.
71 Rev 21:ii.

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