2005. Since it belongs to the supernatural order, grace escapes our experience and cannot be known except by faith. We cannot therefore rely on our feelings or our works to conclude that we are justified and saved.56 However, according to the Lord’s words “Thus you will know them by their fruits”57 – reflection on God’s blessings in our life and in the lives of the saints offers us a guarantee that grace is at work in us and spurs us on to an ever greater faith and an attitude of trustful poverty.
A pleasing illustration of this attitude is found in the reply of St. Joan of Arc to a question posed as a trap by her ecclesiastical judges: “Asked if she knew that she was in God’s grace, she replied: ‘If I am not, may it please God to put me in it; if I am, may it please God to keep me there.'”58
Aprofunde seus conhecimentos
563. How does the Church pray to Mary?
268. What is the effect of Confirmation?
138. What are the names of the Holy Spirit?
212. In what does hell consist?
477. What practices are contrary to respect for the bodily integrity of the human person?
510. When does the Church intervene in social areas?
593. What is the specifically Christian sense of this petition?
Acesse nossos estudos biblicos:
What is the importance of faith in the healing of blind Bartimaeus, described in Matthew 20:29-34?
What is the story behind the miracle of Elisha’s resurrection of the Shunammite’s son in 2 Kings 4?
How do the Psalms teach us to be more sensitive to God’s presence (Psalm 139:1-4)?
What can we learn about the growth of the early church in Jerusalem from Acts 2:41-47?
The story of Daniel in the lions’ den (Daniel 6)
The Light of the World: Jesus is the light that illuminates the darkness (John 8:12)
