Praised be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.
Today's reflection on Franciscan spirituality, we're going to talk about sanctification as a work of love.
This reflection might be a bit dense, hopefully not stupid dense, hopefully profound and good dense, but I think it's worth going through.
Very interesting, very beautiful, the way the Franciscans understand charity and grace.
We know that God is love, that he creates for love, and because love is diffusive, meaning that it tends to pour itself out, love's proper act is gift.
What does love do?
Love gives.
Mother Teresa used to say, give until it hurts.
Love gives.
As creatures, even though we receive the gift of life from God, we aren't children of God by nature.
No, we're God's handiwork, as the apostle says in Ephesians 2.10, but not his children properly speaking, only one created being is son of God by nature, that's Jesus Christ in his sacred humanity.
God enriched the humanity assumed by the word with the participation of his full divine super abundant life.
The sacred humanity of Jesus enjoys the most abundant divine life that can be given to any creature, really.
Blessed John Don Scotus calls this the highest or the supreme grace.
It's a grace which is added to the grace, to what's called the grace of union.
The grace of union is the grace by which the human nature of Christ subsists or has its existence in the divine person.
That's something that's unique, that can't be shared with anyone.
Another way of saying it is that the grace of the hypostatic union, the union of God with the human nature of Christ is incommunicable, again, it can't be shared or communicated, but at the same time, our sharing in the divine life, which is the life of sanctifying grace, Christ can communicate that to free creatures endowed with reason.
So Jesus is the only natural son of the Father, but he can and he wants to have other brothers and sisters to whom he gives his grace.
This is why we say that we're children of God by adoption, not by nature.
So in the giving of us, sanctifying grace, the only begotten son of the Father becomes the firstborn of many brothers, as the apostle says in Romans 8, 29.
In Jesus, we become adopted sons and daughters of the Father.
How do we become adopted children of God?
Well, the Holy Spirit, who formed the humanity of Jesus in the womb of Our Lady and enriched it with his grace, the Holy Spirit descends also into our souls and he enriches us with his divine gift, too.
In theology, the Holy Spirit is called love, he's also called gift.
So sanctification really is a work of love, and we become children of God, not just because God loves us as his creatures, but through sanctifying grace, God now loves us as he loves his Son, Jesus.
And loving us in this way, he makes us like his Son.
Jesus himself prayed to the Father, he said, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them, John 17, 26.
So grace puts that love there in our hearts and in our souls.
So since God is love, then a participation in his life will be a participation in his love, participation in divine charity.
Grace therefore is love.
Grace is charity.
This is what the Franciscan School of Theology teaches.
Grace is the fatherly love of God directed towards his creatures.
And when God's love is given to us through his grace, it creates in us the possibility to respond to God with love, too.
With the love of a son or a daughter for our loving Heavenly Father.
So God gives us his love, which is his grace, and through that grace we can love him back.
Sacred Scripture permits and even encourages us to embrace this interpretation of grace as being charity, and not just charity as a separate infused virtue into the soul.
We'll give some examples of this from Scripture.
For example, St. Paul affirms that even the most extraordinary gifts and the greatest works are nothing without charity, and he says that charity is greater than faith and hope, that it's the form of every other virtue, and that it never ends.
He says that all in 1 Corinthians 13.
In Romans 5.5, the Apostle says that the love of God is poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us, and what does the Holy Spirit give us?
He gives us his grace, which is his love.
The beloved Apostle St. John says that our divine adoption comes through charity.
He says that in 1 John 3, verse 1, see what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God, and so we are.
We hear our Lord say in John 14, verse 21, he says, he who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me, and he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.
So being acceptable and pleasing to God is also attributed to love, not just to grace.
It's attributed to charity.
We especially know, again, that that's true of grace as well, too.
Again according to St. John, the supernatural life is a fruit of charity.
He says in 1 John 3, verse 14, we know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brethren.
He who does not love remains in death.
So what's mortal sin?
Mortal sin is spiritual death, right?
What's spiritual death?
It's when we lose sanctifying grace in our souls.
So we begin to see in these passages how charity and grace are really interchangeable in sacred scripture in a lot of ways.
In the next chapter of his first letter, St. John reinforces this.
He says, love is of God, and he who loves is born of God and knows God.
He who does not love does not know God, for God is love, 1 John 4, verses 7 and 8.
And lastly, perfect union with God, our life with him, and his permanence, so his dwelling in us, St. John attributes that to charity.
God is love, he says, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him, 1 John 4, verse 16.
So in almost all these verses, you can exchange the word charity for grace and grace for charity.
Means the same thing.
Again, when we talk about dying in a state of grace, what does that mean?
It means dying with supernatural charity in our souls.
Mortal sin and sanctifying grace cannot live together, and mortal sin can't exist with charity either, per se.
Mortal sin doesn't destroy the virtues of faith and hope unless you sin directly against those virtues.
On top of that, faith and hope cease in the next life.
They end with the vision and the possession of God, but charity continues.
Charity or grace has its complete blossoming in heaven when it reaches its goal, which is union with God in glory.
So with all that said, the Franciscan school says that it's impossible to really distinguish grace from charity.
What you can say about the one, you can say about the other.
So charity's not just an infused virtue, it's grace, it's a participation in the life of God, who is Himself charity.
We'll continue with some of these same thoughts in our next reflection.
For now, we'll just ask our Lady to help us live more in God's grace, which means, essentially, to live more in His love.
Praised be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.