The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 262: Habitual and Actual Grace (2026)

Episode Date: September 19, 2026

Without God’s help, we can do nothing. The Catechism delves into grace today, explaining how grace works and helps us achieve our supernatural vocation to eternal life. Fr. Mike unpacks the difference between habitual and actual grace and reminds us that God is always the initiator of all our spiritual efforts. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 1996-2001. This episode has been found to be in conformity with the Catechism by the Institute on the Catechism, under the Subcommittee on the Catechism, USCCB. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/ciy Please note: The Catechism of the Catholic Church contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.

Hi, my name's Father Mike Schmitz, and you're listening to the Catechism in a Year podcast, where we encounter God's plan of sheer goodness for us, revealed in Scripture, and passed down through the tradition of the Catholic faith. The Catechism in a year is brought to you by Ascension in E. In 365 days, we'll read through the Catechism of the Catholic Church, discovering our identity and God's family as we journey together toward our heavenly home. This is Day 262. We're reading paragraphs 1996 to 2001. As always, I'm using the Ascension edition of the Catechism, which includes the Foundations of Faith approach, but you can follow along with any recent version of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

You can also download your own catechism in a year reading plan by visiting ascensionpress.com and you can on day 262. You can be the one person at day 262 who subscribes or follows your podcast app for daily updates, daily notifications. Think about that. Maybe you're that one person who got all the way to day 262 and still hasn't subscribed. You know, some people subscribe on day 365, and I think that's wonderful. But maybe you'll be the only one.

Think about it. Pray about it today. as we read paragraphs 1996 to 2001. We're going to talk about grace. You know, yesterday we talked about justification. This is incredible. Remember paragraph 1994 yesterday? It says, justification is the most excellent work of God's love made manifest in Christ Jesus

and granted by the Holy Spirit. So incredible. In fact, we talked about this and highlighted it kind of at the end how St. Augustine had said his opinion was that the justification of the wicked is a greater work than the creation of the heaven and earth because heaven and earth will pass away, but the salvation and justification of the elect will not pass away. This incredible, incredible work of God's love, grace today. We talk about this.

How does justification happen, right? Well, justification, the most excellent work of God's love. How does justification come about? Well, our justification in paragraph 1996, our justification comes from the grace of God. And grace is favor, it's free and undeserved help that God gives to helps us respond to his call, become children of God, his adopted children,

partakers of divine nature, eternal life, incredible. That's what we're going to talk about today. Grace. And so as you're listening to this today, sometimes the perspective is that Catholics do not pay as close attention to grace as other Christians. That might be the case for individual Catholics, but that is not the case when it comes to the church's teaching. We recognize that we absolutely are indebted to the Lord for this free and undeserved gift, this free and undeserved help that none of us, none of us could ever merit this and yet is still given to us by a God who loves us, by the God who loves us. And so we're going to talk about, there's two kinds of grace we're going to talk about. One is habitual grace or sanctifying

grace. And the other is actual graces. We're talking about that. Also, we actually maybe even a third kind of the way God gives grace, which is prevenient grace in that last paragraph, paragraph 2001. Before we launch into that, let's launch into our father's heart by calling upon the name of his son, Jesus. We pray. Father in heaven, we do pray in the name of your son, Jesus. We pray that you receive our gifts, you receive our talents, that you receive our time, that you receive our attention. Oh, God, how great of a gift it is that you give us this world and fill it with so much life and so much goodness. The least that we can give you right now is our attention. The least that we can give you is when we look at this world you've created, when we look at these lives that we're

surrounded by, we look at our life, the life you gave us. The least we can do is be attentive to it. least we can do is notice. Lord God, help us to notice what you've done in our lives. Help us to recognize your grace. Help us to avoid sin. Avoid the distortion of your good. Help us to avoid the absence of your good. Help us to avoid evil. And help us to do this by the power of your grace. We make this prayer in the mighty name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. It is the 262. We're reading paragraphs 1996 to 2001. Grace Our justification comes from the grace of God.

Grace is favor, the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of God, adoptive sons, partakers of the divine nature, and of eternal life. 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 body. As an adopted son, he can henceforth, call God Father and union with the only son. He receives in the life of the Spirit who breathes charity into him and who forms the church. This vocation to eternal life is supernatural. It depends

entirely on God's gratuitous initiative for he alone can reveal and give himself. It surpasses the power of human intellect and will as that of every other creature. The grace of Christ is the gratuitous gift that God makes to us of his own life, infused by the Holy Spirit into our our soul to heal it of sin and to sanctify it. It is the sanctifying or deifying grace received in baptism. It is in us the source of the work of sanctification. As St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come. All this is from God who through Christ reconciled us to himself. Sanctifying grace is an habitual gift, a stable and supernatural.

disposition that perfects the soul itself to enable it to live with God, to act by his love. Habitual grace, the permanent disposition to live and act in keeping with God's call, is distinguished from actual graces, which refer to God's interventions, whether at the beginning of conversion or in the course of the work of sanctification. The preparation of man for the reception of grace is already a 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, as St. Augustine said, he who completes his work by cooperating with our will, began by working so that we might will it. St. Augustine further stated, Indeed, we also work, but we are only collaborating with God who works, for His mercy has gone before us. It has gone before us so that we may be healed

and follows us so that once healed, we may be given life. It goes before us so that we may be called and follows us so that we may be glorified. It goes before us so that we may live devoutly and follows us so that we may always live with God. For without him, we can do nothing. All right, there we have it, paragraphs 1996 to 2001. You know, talking about grace.

We're talking about something that I think in so many ways it feels so abstract. Like, okay, God's grace. I know that it's a gift. I know it's unmerited. I know it's free. I know it's undeserved. But what is it? Right?

What is grace? So let's highlight this. Grace is favor, the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of God, to be his adopted sons, to partake in his divine nature and eternal life. So that's the free and undeserved help that God gives us to be able to do this thing that's impossible, right? God has made us to do something that's impossible. Grace is the power of Him, the power of God himself that makes this possible.

In paragraph 1997, it highlights grace is a participation in the life of God. Now think about that. So sometimes I think of grace as like it's a thing. And it is. It is the life of God. Here in paragraph 1997, it is also described as an action. Grace is an action. Grace is a relationship. Grace is a participation in the life of God of God. And it's just so incredible that by baptism, we all participate in the grace of Christ as an adopted son because of grace. We can forever call God's father in union with the only son. and we receive the life of the spirit who breathes love into us and who forms the church. So grace, again, is that power that God gives us, is that favor, that free and undeserved help that God gives us so we can respond to his call. And it's also a participation in the life of God. Now, remember this, paragraph 1998 highlights us so importantly. The vocation that you've been given, right, the call that God has on your life is to be his forever, eternal life. That is what they call supernatural. So no matter what we do, no matter how strong or wise or good we could be on the

natural level, we could never reach this supernatural level. That's one of the reasons why paragraph 1998 highlights that this vocation to eternal life that is supernatural depends entirely on God's gratuitous, like just gracious and free and abundant initiative. For God alone can reveal and give himself, right? We can't claim God. If he doesn't let himself be claimed, we can't grab onto someone who doesn't let himself be grabbed onto. God alone can reveal himself. God alone can give himself. And it's so, so important. It goes on to same paragraph 1999. It says, the grace of Christ is the gratuitous gift. Remember, we keep using those terms gratuitous gift. The grace of Christ is the gratuitous gift that God makes to us of his own life. So some ways you can think, okay, what is grace?

grace is the very life of God. Grace is the very life of God. Infused by the Holy Spirit into our soul to heal it of sin and to sanctify it. God, through his gift in baptism, he made us partakers of the divine nature. The sanctifying grace is in paragraph 2000, it highlights this. It's an habitual gift, a stable and supernatural disposition that perfects the soul itself to enable it to live with God and to act by his love. Okay, so remember we talked about how virtues are habitual gifts. So what do we mean there?

Well, we don't mean habit in the sense of like whenever I'm driving my car, I automatically, habitually just turn on my right turn signal when I'm coming up to a corner where I'm going to turn. It's not like that in the sense of it's just out of habit. I don't even have to think about it. Habitual here simply means that term like stable. This is a permanent disposition. So habitual grace, sanctified grace, is the habitual permanent disposition. to live and act in keeping with God's call. And that's so important. You were given, if you were baptized, you were given this sanctifying grace. And that imparts a permanent character on us. We're transformed into his children in a saving way where we become incorporated into Christ

through adoption. And through that adoption, we share in his sonship. We become God's beloved sons and daughters. Of course, however, we can lose sanctifying grace. Because the presence of sanctifying grace at baptism is not permanent in the sense that it will never go away on its own. And how do we lose sanctifying grace? Well, we lose sanctifying grace when we sin. We lose sanctifying grace when we choose to walk away from our father's house and live in mortal sin. It's not to any kind of sin, just mortal sin. So sanctifying grace, it's meant to be the thing we say yes to that perfects our soul and enables us to live with God. Think about it like this. This is a really, really bad analogy, and I apologize for this right away. Imagine

that at some point it's made possible through science and technology to actually fly to the sun. The sun, obviously, being very, very warm, would be a very, I don't know why anyone would want to go there, but let's say you could. In order to live that close, or even be, exist that close to the sun, there would have to be some kind of special suit, right? Some kind of special thing that you'd be wearing that will protect you from the heat, the light, the intensity of the sun because without this special suit, it would destroy you in a heartbeat, even less than a heartbeat. That is like us in God's presence.

You and I, we can't get any closer to the sun without being destroyed. How in the world would we get close to God without being destroyed? So one way you can envision this is, yeah, God gives us this special suit. We put on this special suit and it protects us from. the intensity of divinity. It protects us from the intensity of the divine life, that goodness, that holiness. You could also say it like this. Grace actually changes us into a new creature. And that change perfects the soul and enables us to live with God. So it's not a suit anymore. This is actually something that you've been changed from the inside out, that in your baptism,

and in your yes to grace, what you've been doing, you can transform to a beloved son or daughter. In fact, remember that term deification or that phrase, partaker in the divine nature. Now, internally, you're a new creature. You're the kind of being now who could live in the presence of the sun without a suit. Does that make sense? And so it's not this kind of like covering that you have over you. That's not it at all. You've been transformed by sanctifying grace in this stable,

supernatural disposition that enables you and I, all those baptized, enables us to live with God, to actually in some mysterious way to abide in his presence and to not be destroyed, but to belong there. Imagine to belong there. Now, of course, God wants every one of his beloved creatures, everyone he made in his image and likeness. He wants all of us to say yes to that. He wants all of us to experience sanctifying grace through baptism. And yet, you and I, if you've been baptized, we are experiencing that grace, that habitual grace. Now, this is different and distinguished from actual graces. Actual graces are those with Catechism Paragraph 2000 calls God's interventions,

where God steps in. Here is a moment of grace. And so we can think of these in so many different ways. And actual grace might be something like I am trying to figure out what God wants for my life. And so I'm in prayer, I'm asking God, please show me the next step, show me the path. And at some point, it's very clear, oh, this is the next step. Okay, that's an actual. grace. That's one, again, the term one of God's interventions. Another time could be, I need the

supernatural gift of counsel, supernatural gift of understanding or wisdom or even healing, like maybe even mighty works or miracles. Those are all examples of actual graces which refer to God's interventions at the beginning of a conversion or in the course of the work to sanctification. So those actual graces, those charisms, some of them make us holier and others of them are given to us so that the church can be built up. And so it's incredible. So habitual grace, that's sanctifying grace given to us at baptism. Actual graces are all throughout the course of our life that help us what? That help at the beginning of conversion or in the course of the work of sanctification as we become more and more like Jesus.

Paragraph 2001 talks about a kind of, you might say, a third kind or third mode, a third way of being of grace. It says this, the preparation of man for the reception of grace is already a work of grace. So let's go back to this. Wait, the preparation of a person for the reception of grace is already a, work of grace. This was a term that back in seminary, they said, this is called prevenient grace. It's before I say yes, before I make any move towards the Lord, he has already moved towards me. Before you and I even have the idea, you know what I should do? I should press play on the catechism in the era. Before you and I ever have the idea of, you know, I should go to confession.

It's this prevenient grace, right? This grace that moves us and arouses in us a desire to collaborate with God. a desire to even reach out to him. This is one of the things we have to always remember. We only respond. God always initiates. When it comes to any growth in grace, when it comes to any growth in holiness, when it comes to any prayer,

every time you and I have ever said yes to mass or prayer or confession or doing any good work, that's always because God initiated. God was the one who moves first. That's always a response. And this is what we're going to hear in the fourth pillar of the catechism. We talk about prayer.

is that prayer is always a response. And actually even the life of grace is always a response because, yes, there is sanctifying grace, that permanent, habitual, stable disposition. There's actual graces, but there's also prevenient grace. That grace that works on us, moves us, and arouses in us while we're still maintaining our freedom. Again, we keep that in mind, while still maintaining our freedom, that grace arouses this desire to start, arouses a desire to say yes to God. And think about how dependent we are.

This is amazing. I don't know how any of us could fall down that, or walk down that path of pride when we realize, wow, Lord, even my small good, the small good that I do is because you put that desire in me and you actually prepared me and you gave me the power to do that good. There is so little room in any one of us because God always wants to work. I love this.

Again, this quote from St. Augustine is very, very end. There's two quotes from St. Augustine here at the end in paragraph 2001. It says that God brings to completion in us what he has begun. Here's the Augustine quote, since he who completes his work by cooperating with our will began by working so that we might will it. And the God who brings this to completion is also the God who initiated the whole thing. And this beautiful, I mean, just really, really beautiful longer quote here in paragraph 2001 is where we're going to end. St. Augustine. He says, indeed, we also work, but we are only collaborative. with God who works. Why? For His mercy has gone before us. Yeah, we work, but we're only collaborating

with God who works, because His mercy is already gone before us. His love's already gone before us. It has gone before us so that we may be healed and follows us so that once healed, we may be given life. It goes before us so that we may be called and follows us so that we may be glorified. It goes before us so that we might live devoutly and follows us so that we may always live with God, for without Him we can do nothing. That is, that is in so many ways of the gospel, right? That is the good news that without God we can do nothing, but here's the great news. God's here and he's moving. He's starting. He's initiating, right? And he's giving us the power to continue. He's giving us the power to respond. He's giving us the power to complete his good work because he is the one who's doing it. He completes his work by

cooperating with our will, began by working so that we might will it. That's amazing. Now, tomorrow we're going to continue to talk about the grace, but also going to talk not just about grace, we're also going to talk about free response, the fact that we do remain free. And this is, I think, really, really beautiful because as we talk about grace one last time, not one last time, but in this little section here, we're talking about the different kinds of grace. We have sacramental graces. We have other special graces or charisms. I kind of mentioned some of those charisms earlier in this particular episode when I talked about some of the charisms of, say, mighty works or miracles, praying in tongues, those kind of things are charisms, a kind of grace

that is given to us so that we can build up the kingdom of God, build up the body of Christ, the church on earth. So incredible. Talk about that tomorrow. The day after that, we're talking about a thing called merit, which I think is whenever I read the catechism, I always read this section on merit because it's just it.

I think it's pretty powerful. And I think you're going to find it pretty powerful too. But that's in a couple days from now. Tomorrow more on grace. Today, you guys, I'm praying for you. Please pray for me. My name's Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow.

God bless.