PREVENIENT AND ACTUAL GRACES


SAINT TERESA OF AVILA, VIRGIN, DOCTOR

Rom 2:1-11; Ps 62:2-3,6-7,9; Lk 11:42-46

The Insufficiency of Prevenient Grace

What comparison can we make of prevenient grace and actual grace? We must proceed from the fact that God made us for himself, and He alone can bring us to participate in divine life; that is, to be like him. We are not passive in God’s transformative work of making us like God; we are active participants through our spiritual faculties. Therefore, prevenient grace is necessary to bring us to an awareness of God’s will, as beneficial for us. It fosters a willingness to do God’s will in us. It is not sufficient to make us realise or accomplish the divine will. Actual grace enables us to cooperate with God in accomplishing His divine will. It is one thing for a child to want to take a bath, and entirely a different thing for it to wash itself clean. Its willingness is needed for it to cooperate with the mother or father, who intends to wash the baby. If we are open, the actual grace follows the prevenient grace when we progress from asking to searching in our prayer intention. The prevenient grace answers our asking or desire to know the will of God for us. But the actual grace is an answer to our search for means to accomplish the will of God that He has revealed to us. On the stages of our spiritual life, prevenient grace is predominant in the first stage, which is mainly that of purification. It comes to convict us of our sinful ways, as it shows us the divine will as expressed in the Commandments and in the word of God. It occasions conversion and remorse for our sins.  

The actual grace predominates the stage of illumination in our spiritual journey and life. It is not immediate on prevenient grace, because the stage of illumination of our minds does not immediately follow the stage of purification. Illumination commences on our discovery of our inability to accomplish the will of God on our own. The impossibility of keeping the Commandments impels us to search for the means of doing the will of God and pleasing him. Only then does God reveal the Saviour of man. Our spiritual illumination is about coming to know Jesus Christ, our Lord, as a necessary means to pleasing the Father. If we have not discovered who the Son of Man is for our salvation, then we have not entered the spiritual illumination; we are yet to search in prayer; we are yet to receive the actual grace for cooperation with God. The Gentiles are in need of the prevenient grace of God, while the Jews are in need of the actual grace of God. Because the prevenient grace is insufficient on its own for salvation, Saint Paul judges the Jews, who are without the actual grace, the same as the Gentiles. “No matter who you are, if you pass judgement, you have no excuse. In judging others you condemn yourself, since you behave no differently from those you judge.” Without the actual grace, the possession of the prevenient grace does us no good. In fact, it may even increase our condemnation and punishment; we know what God wants of us, but refuse to apply ourselves to doing it.

Our Lord Jesus Christ condemned the Pharisees and the scribes or lawyers on that ground. They possessed the prevenient grace offered by the Law and the Prophets, but were not willing to submit themselves in search of the means to accomplish God’s will. They rather attempted to modify the Law to suit their own purposes. “Alas for you, Pharisees! You who pay your tithe of mint and rue and all sorts of garden herbs and overlook justice and the love of God! These you should have practised, without leaving the others undone.” To the lawyers, he said: “Alas for you lawyers also, because you load on men burdens that are unendurable, burdens that you yourselves do not move a finger to lift.” Only love can carry the burden of the Law, which Jesus Christ carried for us. Hence, we need the actual grace, which comes with faith in Jesus Christ, for our salvation. Saint Teresa’s work on the Interior Castle is a masterpiece of how we must submit our spiritual faculties to the light of the Gospel, and come to union with God through love of Jesus Christ. She was born in Avila, Spain, and entered the Carmelite convent there at the age of 20. With time, and despite ill health, she made great progress in contemplative prayer and had mystical experiences. These led her to seek a more perfect life through founding a convent of Discalced Carmelites with stricter observances. She overcame many oppositions to her reform and died, worn out by her efforts, on 15 October 1582. She teaches us that Jesus is not only the way, but he is the truth, and the life.

Let us pray: O God, who through your Spirit raised up Saint Teresa of Jesus to show the Church the way to seek perfection, grant that we may always be nourished by the food of her heavenly teaching and fired with longing for true holiness. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. 

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