for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God    Romans 3:21 (NIV)

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For the wages of sin is death, but the gracious gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Romans 6:23 (NASB)

Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.   James 1:17 (NASB)

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For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. Titus 2:11 (NIV)

all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.  Romans 3:24 (NIV)

I can do all things through him who gives me strength. Philippians 4:13 (NASB)

I am the vine, you are the branches; the one who remains in Me, and I in him bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. John 15:5 (NASB)

Divine grace is needed by every soul in consequence of the Fall of Adam and also because of man’s weaknesses and shortcomings. However, grace cannot suffice without total effort on the part of the recipient. Hence the explanation, “It is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do” (2 Nephi 25:23). It is truly the grace of Jesus Christ that makes salvation possible. This principle is expressed in Jesus’ parable of the vine and the branches (John 15:1–11).

Personal Commentary

For the first thirty years of my life, I was a Catholic.  With the exception of about five years in my late teens, when my family walked away from the church, I was a regular attender of Mass on Sundays and Holy Days. 

Unlike many Catholics I have known over the years, I was always a stickler for details, so I never accepted anything without asking for an explanation.   That means that I didn’t do anything “just because”, I understood everything that I was told I should believe.

That said, here is what I was taught, and believed, about grace.

• Baptism – Performed on me as an infant, at the request of my parents.  This took care of original sin and made me a member of the Catholic Church.  My parents spoke on my behalf. I was baptized within days of my birth because my parents were told that I would not survive.

• Confirmation – Performed when I reached the age of reason (around 11 Years of age) – when I could understand the difference between right and wrong and the consequences.  This was when I would make my own decision and speak for myself and confirm my membership in the Catholic Church.

• Eucharist (Communion) – We had significant training as part of Confirmation and First Holy Communion, before the big day when we could go to the alter for communion.  I was taught that this was the one time/place – Communion – when a person could experience the presence of God.

• Penance (Confession) – Before we could do our First Holy Communion, we learned about Confession.  We were taught that the only way to obtain forgiveness of our sins was to tell them to the Priest in the confessional.  The priest would give us penance to help us obtain and appreciate the forgiveness.

• Anointing of the Sick – My understanding of this one is that it is for people who are sick to a point that they may not recover/live.  It is a blessing that is usually accompanied by a Confession and sometimes Communion.  The objective is to make sure that the sick person does not have any unforgiven sins before they die for fear that they won’t go to Heaven.

• Holy Orders – This one is about becoming a Nun or a Priest. Though I strongly considered becoming a Priest, not many of us can take advantage of this sacrament.

• Holy Matrimony – This one is about getting married in the Church.

• As an adult, I had a lot of issues with this one.  My parents had an abusive relationship all of my life, when I was 18, my father announced that he was done with it and was moving out to live with his new girlfriend (My sister was 16 and the new girlfriend was 17).  There would not be a divorce because that just wasn’t done.  He would just live in sin.  My mother could not adjust to the situation, so she killed herself.  As our family was not currently attending church, my father obtained a priest that did not know our family to do the funeral and she was buried.  He later expressed great relief that she had mitigated the need for a divorce by her death.  He could now return and be in good standing with the Church.  Later, when he decided to get married again (not to the previously mentioned girlfriend), I was asked to be the Sponsor for my potential stepmother as she converted to Catholicism.  This process was basically the same as what Kids went through for Confirmation, Confession & First Communion.  The content of the training was unchanged from what I had learned as a kid.  After years of abuse, stepmother #1 obtained a divorce.  For a fee, my father was able to get the marriage annulled by the Church.  Stepmother #2 was Catholic, so they just got married.  After a child, and a very short period of abuse, stepmother #2 also got a divorce.  Another fee and another annulment.  Stepmother #3 was also a Catholic, so they just got married.  This one fought back – God bless her – so the marriage was more peaceful until my father passed.

I shared all of that, just to raise the question of the effectiveness of the sacrament of Holy Matrimony in providing grace.

RESOURCES

While developing this topic, I visited the official Compendium OF THE CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH and did not find anything to suggest that the official Catechism had changed from what I had been taught.

I also found this article Grace – What it is and what it does on www.catholic.com to be informative.