Chapter XXVII. Providence and the grace of a happy death
One of those vital questions that should be of the deepest interest to every soul, no matter what its condition, is the question of a happy death. On this subject St. Augustine wrote one of his last and finest works, the Gift of Perseverance, in which he gives his definite views on the mystery of grace.
By the Semi-Pelagians on the one hand and Protestants and Jansenists on the other, this vital question has been understood in widely different, even fundamentally opposite, senses. These two contrary heresies prompted the Church to define her teaching on this point more precisely and to declare the truth in all its sublimity as the transcendent mean between the extreme errors.
A brief summary of these errors will give us a better appreciation of the truth and a clearer understanding of what the grace of a happy death really is. We shall then see how this grace may be obtained.
The doctrine of the Church and the errors opposed to it
The Semi-Pelagians maintained that man can have the initium fidei et salutis, the beginning of faith and a good desire apart from grace, this beginning being subsequently confirmed by God. According to their view, not God but the sinner himself takes the first step in the sinner’s conversion. 317
On the same principles the Semi-Pelagians maintained that, once justified by grace, man can persevere until death without a further special grace. For the just to persevere unto the end, it is enough, they said, that the z#tium salutis, this natural good will, should persist.
It amounted to this, that God not only wills all men to be saved, but wills it to the same extent in every case; and further, that precisely the element which distinguishes the just from the wicked—the initium salutis and those final good dispositions which are to be found in one and not in another, in Peter and not in Judas—is not to be referred to God as its author; He is simply an onlooker.
It meant the rejection of the mystery of predestination and the ignoring of those words of our Lord: “No man can come to Me, except the Father, who sent Me, draw him” (John 6: 44), words that apply both to the initial and to the final impulse of our hearts to God. “Without Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5), our Lord said. As the Second Council of Orange recalled against the Semi-Pelagians, St. Paul added: “Who distinguisheth thee? Or what hast thou that thou hast not received?” (I Cor. 4:7); “Not that we are sufficient to think anything of ourselves, as of ourselves; but our suficiency is from God” (II Cor. 3:5). If this is true of our every thought, still more true is it of the least salutary desire, whether it be the first or the last.
St. Augustine, too, pointed out that both the first grace and the last are in an especial way gratuitous. The first prevenient grace cannot be merited or in any way be due to a purely natural good impulse, since the principle of merit is sanctifying grace, and this, as its very name implies, is a gratuitous gift, a life wholly supernatural both for men and for angels.
Again, the final grace, the grace of final perseverance, is, as St. Augustine pointed out, a special gift, a grace peculiar to the elect, of whom our Lord said: “No one can snatch them out of the hand of My Father” (John 10:29). When this grace is granted, he added, it is from sheer mercy; if on the other hand it is not given, it is as a just chastisement for sin, usually for repeated sin, which has alienated the soul from God. We have it exemplified in the death of the good thief and that of the unrepentant one.
For St. Augustine the question is governed by two great principles. The first is that not only are the elect foreseen by God, but they are more beloved by Him. St. Paul had said: “Who distinguisheth thee? Or what hast thou that thou hast not received?” (I Cor. 4:17.) Later on we find St. Thomas saying that “since the love of God is cause of whatever goodness there is in things, no one thing would be better than another, if God did not will a greater good for one than for the other” (Ia, q. 20, a. 3).
The other principle, formulated by St. Augustine in express terms, is that God never commands the impossible, but in commanding He admonishes us to do what we can and to ask for grace to accomplish what we ourselves cannot do: Deus impossibilia non jubet, sed in jubendo monet et facere quod possis et petere quod non possis. These words, taken from his De natura et gratia,’ are quoted by the Council of Trent * and bring out how God desires to make it really possible for all to be saved and observe His precepts, and how in fact He does so. As for the elect, He sees to it that they continue to observe His precepts until the end.1
How are these two great principles, certain and beyond dispute, to be intimately reconciled? Before receiving the beatific vision, no created intellect, of men or of angels, can perceive how this can be. It must first be seen how infinite justice, infinite mercy, and a sovereign liberty are reconciled in the Deity, and this requires an immediate vision of the divine essence.
As we know, these principles laid down by St. Augustine against Semi-Pelagianism were in substance approved by the Second Council of Orange. Thus it remains true that the grace of a happy death is a special grace peculiar to the elect.
At the opposite extreme to Semi-Pelagianism, Protestantism and Jansenism distorted the first principle formulated by St. Augustine by rejecting the second. On the pretext of emphasizing the mystery of predestination, they denied the allembracing character of God’s saving will, maintaining also that in some cases God commands the impossible, that at the moment of death it is not possible for all to be faithful to the divine precepts. We know what the first proposition of Jansenius was,? that certain of God’s commandments are impossible for some even among the just, and this not merely when they are negligent or have not the full use of reason and will, but even when they have the desire to carry out these precepts and do really strive to fulfil them: justis volentibus et conantibus. Even for them the carrying out of certain precepts is impossible because they are denied the grace that would make it possible.
Such a proposition must drive men to despair and shows
8 Aliqua Dei praecepta hominibus justis volentibus et conantibus, secundum praesentes quas habent vires, sunt impossibilia, deest quoque illis gratia qua possibilia fiant. Denzinger, n. 1092.
how wide is the gulf separating Jansenism from the true doctrine of St. Augustine and St. Thomas: Deus impossibilia non jubet. This grave error involves the denial of God’s justice and hence of God Himself; a fortiori it denies His mercy and the offering of sufficient grace to all. Indeed it means the rejection of true human liberty (libertas a necessitate), so that finally sin becomes unavoidable and is sin no longer, and hence cannot without extreme cruelty be punished eternally.
From the same erroneous principles, Protestants were led to declare not only that predestination is gratuitous, but that good works, in the case of adults, are not necessary for salvation, faith alone sufficing. Hence that saying of Luther's: Pecca fortiter et crede fortius: sin resolutely, but trust even more resolutely in the application of Christ’s merits to you and in your predestination. This is no longer hope, but is an unpardonable presumption. Jansenism and Protestantism, in fact, oscillate between presumption and despair, without ever being able to find true Christian hope and charity.
Against this heresy the Council of Trent defined * that “Whereas we should all have a steadfast hope in God, nevertheless (without a special revelation) no one can have absolute certainty that he will persevere to the end.” The Council quotes the words of St. Paul: “Wherefore, my dearly beloved (as you have always obeyed . . .), with fear and trembling work out your salvation. . . . For it is God who worketh in you, both to will and to accomplish according to His good will” (Phil. 2: 12); “He that thinketh himself to stand, let him take heed, lest he fall” (I Cor. 10:12). He must put all his trust in the Almighty, who is alone able to raise him up when he has fallen and keep the just upright in a corrupt
and perverse world. “And he shall stand: for God is able to make him stand” (Rom. 14: 4).
And so the Church maintains the Gospel teaching in its rightful place above the vagaries of error, above the extreme heresies of Semi-Pelagianism and Protestantism. On the one hand, the elect are more beloved of God than others are, and, on the other hand, God never commands the impossible, but in His love desires to make it really possible for all to be faithful to His commandments.
It remains true therefore, as against Semi-Pelagianism, that the grace of a happy death is a special gift® and, as against Protestantism and Jansenism, that among those who have the use of reason they alone are deprived of help at the last who actually reject it by resisting the sufficient grace offered them, as the bad thief resisted it, and that in the very presence of Christ the Redeemer.®
5 The Council of Trent defined, Sess. VI, can. 22 (Denz. n, 832): “If anyone saith that the justified either is able to persevere without the special help of God in the justice received; or that with that help he is not able: let him be anathema.” (Cf. nn, 804, 806.) The terms of the Council—‘‘the grace of final perseverance is a special assistance’’—must be rightly understood if all ambiguity is to be avoided. There is no necessity for a new action on the part of God, for, as will be pointed out shortly, conservation in grace is simply the continuation of its original production, not a new action. So also from the point of view of the soul, it is enough for the habitual grace to be preserved; there is no need for even one new actual gracc, as happens in the case of the child that dies soon after baptism without ever making an act of the love of God. But, according to the Councils of Orange and Trent, what is a special gift, one granted to some and not to others, is the coincidence of the state of grace with death; the fact that grace is preserved up to that moment instead, of God’s permitting a fall. This coincidence of the state of grace with death is a great favor and is from God: when it is granted, it is the divine mercy that grants it, and in this sense it is a special gift.
8 The Council of Trent says again, Sess. VI, cap. 11, 13 (Denzinger, nn. 804, 806): “God commands not impossibilities. . . . All ought to place and repose a most firm hope in God's help. For God, unless men be themselves wanting to His grace, as He has begun the good work, so will He perfect it (in them), to will and to accomplish” (Phil. 2: 13).
This being so, how are we to obtain this immense grace of a happy death? Can we merit it? And if it cannot be merited in the strict sense, is it possible for us at any rate to obtain it through prayer? What are the conditions that such a prayer must conform to?
These are the two points we wish to develop, relying especially on what St. Thomas has written about them in Ia IIae, q. 114, a. 9.
Can we merit the grace of a happy death?
Are we able to merit it in the strict sense of the term “merit,” which implies the right to a divine reward?
Final perseverance, a happy death, is no more than the continuance of the state of grace up to the moment of death, or at any rate it is the coincidence or union of death and the state of grace if conversion takes place at the last moment. In short, a happy death is death in the state of grace, the death of the predestinate or elect.
We now see why the Second Council of Orange declared it to be a special gift,’ why, too, the Council of Trent declared the gratuitous element in it by saying that, “this gift cannot be derived from any other but from the One who is able to establish him who standeth that he stand perseveringly, and to restore him who has fallen.” ê
Whatever we are able to merit, though it comes chiefly from God, is not from Him exclusively; it proceeds also from our own merits, which imply the right to a divine reward.
7 Adjutorium Dei etiam renatis et sanctis semper est implorandum, ut ad finem bonum pervenire vel in bono possint opere perdurare (Denzinger, n. 183).
8 Quod quidem (donum) aliunde haberi non potest, nisi ab eo qui potens est cum qui stat statuere ut perseveranter stet, et eum qui cadit restituere (Denzinger, n. 806).
Hence we feel that the just must humbly admit that they have really no right to the grace of final perseverance.
St. Thomas demonstrates this truth by a principle as simple as it is profound, one that is now commonly received in the Church ° (cf. Ia Iae, q. 114, a. 9). We may profitably pause to consider it for a moment; it will serve to keep us humble.
“The principle of merit,” says St. Thomas, “cannot itself be merited (principium meriti sub merito non cadit)”; for no cause can cause itself, whether it be a physical cause or moral (as merit is). Merit, that act which entitles us to a reward, cannot reach the principle from which it proceeds. Nothing is more evident than that the principle of merit cannot itself be merited.
Now the gift of final perseverance is simply the state of grace maintained up to the moment of death, or at least at that moment restored. Furthermore, the state of grace, produced and maintained by God, is in the order of salvation the very principle of merit, the principle rendering our acts meritorious of an increase in grace and of eternal life. Apart from the state of grace, apart from charity whereby we love God with an efficacious love, more than ourselves, with a love founded at least on a right estimation of values, our salutary acts have no right to a supernatural reward. In such case these salutary acts, like those preceding justification, bear no proportion to such a reward; they are no longer the actions of an adopted son of God and of one who is His friend, heir to God and coheir with Christ, as St. Paul says. They proceed from a soul still estranged from God the last end, through
® Because of their exalted character, in the things of God the simplest are at the same time the most profound; but it is a simplicity wholly different from that which Voltaire spoke of when he said: “I am limpid as a brook because I have little depth.”
mortal sin, from one having no right as yet to eternal life. Hence St. Paul writes (I Cor. 13: 1-3): “If I have not charity, J am nothing . . . it profiteth me nothing.” Apart from the state of grace and charity, my will is estranged from God, and personally therefore I can have no right to a supernatural reward, no merit in the order of salvation.
Briefly, then, the principle of merit is the state of grace and perseverance in that state; but the principle of merit cannot itself be merited.
If the initial production of sanctifying grace cannot be merited, the same must be said of the preservation of anyone in grace, this being simply the continuation of the original production and not a distinct divine action. So says St. Thomas (Ia, q. 104, a. 1 ad gum): “The conservation of the creature by God is not a fresh divine action, but the continuation of the creative act.” Hence the maintenance of anyone in the state of grace can no more be merited than its original production.
To this profound reason many theologians add a second, which is a confirmation of it. Strictly condign merit (meritum de condigno) or merit founded in justice presupposes the divine promise to reward a certain good work. But God has never promised final perseverance or preservation from the sin of final impenitence to one who should keep His commandments for any length of time. Indeed it is precisely this obedience until death in which final perseverance consists; hence it cannot be merited by that obedience, for otherwise it would merit itself. We are thus brought back to our fundamental reason, that the principle of merit cannot be merited. Moreover, with due reservations, the same reason is applicable to congruous merit (meritum de congruo), that merit which is founded in the rights of friendship uniting us to God, the principle of which is again the state of grace.’
What it all comes to is this, that God’s mercy, not His justice, has placed us in the state of grace and continues to maintain us therein.
The just, it is true, are able to merit eternal life, this being the term, not the principle of merit. Even so, if they are to obtain eternal life, it is still required that the merits they have won shall not have been lost before death through mortal sin. Now no acts of charity we perform give us the right to be preserved from mortal sin; it is mercy that preserves us from it. Here is one of the main foundations of humility.
Against this doctrine, now commonly accepted by theologians, a somewhat specious objection has been raised. It has been said that one who merits what is greater can merit what is less. Hence, since the just can merit eternal life de condigno and since this is something more than final perseverance, it follows that they can merit final perseverance also.
10 Jt is a matter of discussion among theologians whether the gift of final perseverance can be the object of this congruous merit, which is founded not in justice but in the charity uniting us with God, in jure amicabili, in the rights of friendship existing between God and the just.
The best commentators of St. Thomas, relying on the principles formulated by him, state in reply that final perseverance cannot be the object of strict congruous merit, since the principle of this merit is a continued state of grace, and the principle of merit, as we have seen, cannot be merited.
Moreover, congruous merit strictly so-called, founded as it is in the rights of friendship, in jure amicabili, obtains infallibly the corresponding reward. God never refuses us what we have merited in this way, at any rate for ourselves personally. From which it would follow that, once come to the use of reason, all the just by their acts of charity would merit the gift of final perseverance and would in fact persevere to the end, which is not the case.
Nevertheless it remains true that the grace of a happy death may be the object of congruous merit understood in a wide sense, this being simply the impetratory value of prayer, which is founded not in justice or the rights of friendship, but in the liberality and mercy of God.
To this St. Thomas replies (zdid., ad 2um et 3um): One who can do what is greater can do what is less, other things being equal, not otherwise. Now here there is a difference between eternal life and final perseverance: eternal life is not the principle of the meritorious act, far from it; eternal life is the term of that act. Final perseverance, on the other hand, is simply the continuance in the state of grace, and this, as we have already seen, is the principle of merit.
But, it is insisted, one who can merit the end can merit also the means to that end; but final perseverance is a means necessary to obtain eternal life and, therefore, like eternal life, can be merited.
Theologians in general reply by denying that the major premise is of universal application. Merit, indeed, is a means of obtaining eternal life, and yet it is not itself merited: it is enough that it can be had in other ways. Similarly, the grace of final perseverance can be obtained otherwise than by merit; it may be had through prayer, which is not directed to God’s justice, as merit is, but to His mercy.
But, it is further insisted, if final perseverance cannot be merited, neither can eternal life, which is only the consequence of this. From what has already been said, we must answer that anyone in the state of grace may merit eternal life only on condition that the merits he has gained have not been lost or have been mercifully restored through the grace of conversion. Hence the Council of Trent states (Sess. VI, cap. 16 and can. 32), that the just man can merit eternal life, sí in gratia decesserit, if he dies in the state of grace.
We are thus brought back to that saying of St. Augustine and of St. Thomas after him: where the gift of final perse- verance is granted, it is through mercy; if it is not granted, it is in just chastisement for sin, and usually for repeated sin, which has alienated the soul from God.
From this we deduce many conclusions, both speculative ™ and practical. We shall draw attention only to the humility that must be ours as we labor in all confidence to work out our salvation.
What we have been saying is calculated from one point of view to inspire dread, but what we have still to say will give great consolation.
How the grace of a happy death may be obtained through prayer
What are the conditions to which this prayer must conform? If, strictly speaking, the gift of final perseverance cannot be merited, since the principle of merit does not merit itself, it may nevertheless be obtained through prayer, which is directed not to God’s justice but to His mercy.
What we obtain through prayer is not always merited: the sinner, for example, who now is in the state of spiritual death, is able with the aid of actual grace to pray for and obtain sanctifying or habitual grace, which could not be merited, since it is the principle of merit.
It is the same with the grace of final perseverance: we cannot merit it in the strict sense, but we can obtain it through prayer for ourselves, and indeed for others also (cf.
11 Since the grace of final perserverance is not merited, it is not because God has foreseen our merits that He bestows it upon us; from which it follows that predestination to glory is also gratuitous: it is not ex praevisis meritis, as St. Thomas says (Ia, q.23, a.5). If anyone wishes to maintain that it is ex praevisis meritis, then at least he must say that it is not “from merits foreseen as persisting unto the end apart from a special gift,” ex praevisis meritis absque speciali dono usque in finem perdurantibus.
St. Thomas, ibid., ad rum). What is more, we can and indeed we ought to prepare ourselves to receive this grace by leading a better life.
Whatever the Quietists may have said, failure to ask for the grace of a happy death and to prepare ourselves to receive it argues a disastrous and stupid negligence, incuria salutis.
For this reason our Lord taught us to say in the Our Father: “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil”; and the Church bids us say daily: “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.”
Can our prayer obtain this grace of a happy death infallibly? Relying on our Lord’s promise, “Ask and you shall receive,” theology teaches that prayer made under certain conditions is infallible in obtaining the gifts necessary for salvation, including therefore the final grace. What are the conditions required that prayer shall be infallibly efficacious? “They are four,” St. Thomas tells us (IIa Iae, q. 83, a. 15 ad 2um): “We must ask for ourselves, the things necessary for salvation, with piety, with perseverance.”
We are, in fact, more certain of obtaining what we ask for ourselves than when we pray for a sinner, who perhaps is resisting grace at the very moment we are praying for him."” But even though we ask for the gifts necessary for salvation, and for ourselves, prayer will not be infallibly efficacious unless it is made with piety, humility, and confidence, as well as with perseverance. Only then will it express the sincere,
12 Nevertheless, if many of us are praying for the conversion of the sinner, or if our prayer continues not merely for days but for months and long years, it becomes more and more probable that God desires to hear us. since it is He who makes us persevere in our prayer.
profound, unwavering desire of our hearts. And here once again together with our own frailty, appears the mystery of grace; we may fail to persevere in our prayer as we may fail in our meritorious works. This is why we say before communion at mass: “Never permit me, O Lord, to be separated from Thee.” Never permit us to yield to the temptation not to pray; deliver us from the evil of losing the relish and desire for prayer; grant us that we may persevere in prayer notwithstanding the dryness and the profound weariness we sometimes experience.
Our whole life is thus shrouded in mystery. Every one of our salutary acts presupposes the mystery of grace; every one of our sins is a mystery of iniquity, presupposing the divine permission to allow evil to exist in view of some higher good purpose, which will be clearly seen only in heaven. “The just man liveth by faith” (Rom. 1:17). We need help to the very end, not only that we may merit, but that we may pray even. How are we to obtain the necessary help to persevere in prayer? By bearing in mind our Lord’s words: “If you ask the Father anything in My name, He will give it to you. Hitherto you have not asked anything in My name” (John 16: 23-24).
We must pray in the name of our Savior. That is the best way of purifying and strengthening our intention, and will do more than the sword of Brennus to turn the balance. We must ask Him besides to make personal intercession on our behalf. This intercession of His is continued from day to day in the holy mass, wherein, as the Council of Trent says, through the ministry of His priests He never ceases to offer Himself and apply to us the merits of His passion.
Seeing that the grace of a happy death can be obtained only through prayer and not merited, we should turn to that most excellent and efficacious of all prayers, the prayer of our Lord, principal Priest in the sacrifice of the mass. It was for this reason Pope Benedict XV, in a letter to the director of the Archconfraternity of Our Lady For a Happy Death, earnestly recommended the faithful to have masses offered during life for the grace of a happy death. This is indeed the greatest of all graces, the grace of the elect; and if at that last moment we unite ourselves by an intense act of love with Christ’s sacrifice perpetuated on the altar, we may even obtain remission of the temporal punishment due to our sins and thus be saved from purgatory.
Therefore, to obtain this grace of final perseverance, we should frequently unite ourselves with the Eucharistic consecration, the essence of the sacrifice of the mass, pondering on the four ends of sacrifice: adoration, supplication, reparation, and thanksgiving. Let us bear in mind that in this continuous oblation of Himself, our Lord is offering, as well the whole of His mystical body, especially those who suffer spiritually and thereby share a little in His own sufferings. This is a path that will carry us far if only we follow it perseveringly.’®
18 This point is well brought out in an excellent work recently published, Sept retraites de la Mère Elizabeth de la Croix (foundress of the Carmelite convent at Fontainebleau). In these retreats, the subject is simply the union of the soul that has consecrated itself to Jesus crucified for the glory of God and the salvation of souls. Constantly we meet with such passages as these: “Our Lord revealed to me the sentiments of His Sacred Heart and communicated them to me. . . . He said to me: “The two chief motives that led Me to acquiesce in Pilate’s condemnation of Me were the will and glory of My Father and a hunger for the salvation of men. Your whole life, in its smallest details, should be dominated by these two sentiments. Take upon yourself My own sufferings... . During this retreat, for yourself nothing, all for Me. My cross is to be found in pride, in sin; give Me a little help in carrying that cross, The fruit of My carrying the cross for you is that you desire nothing here below, that you be prepared to suffer always, that you desire all that the divine will desires, that you make expiation for the sins of men, of My priests and spouses especially, that you complain
This practice of uniting ourselves with the sacrifice of the mass, with the masses that all day long are being celebrated wherever the sun is rising upon the earth, is the best preparation for a happy death, the best preparation for that hour when for the last time in our lives we shall unite ourselves with the masses then being celebrated far and near. United then with the sacrifice of Christ perpetuated in substance upon the altar, our death will itself be a sacrifice of adoration both of God’s supreme dominion, who is master of life and death, and of the majesty of Him who “leadeth down to hell and bringeth up again” (Tob. 13: 2). It will be a sacrifice of supplication to obtain the final grace both for ourselves and for those who are to die in that same hour. It will also be a sacrifice of reparation for the sins of our life, and a sacrifice of thanksgiving for all the favors we have received since our baptism.
The sacrifice we thus offer with a burning love for God may well open to us forthwith the gates of heaven, as it did for the good thief dying there by the side of our Lord as He of nothing, that you keep your soul fast to My own, that your heart be occupied solely with love for Me’ (pp. 181 ff.). ‘In this (when loaded with the cross) I am your model.’ . . . At the offering of the bread and wine at mass our Lord Jesus Christ said to me: ‘I offer you to My Father as victim embracing all that I intend in your regard ... the needs of My Church... the perils in which souls are plunged and the ardor of My appeals.” At holy communion He said: ‘I shall be your strength always.’ ‘My cross: that is the sign and token of the love I have for souls, of the love also that souls have for Me. You I have invited to share in the folly of the cross, to refuse to be bound to earth by a single thread .. . to follow Me through pain, insults, and ignominy . . . to be My spouse crucified unto death.’ Again He said to Me: ‘It was through calumny that I was condemned to be crucified. . . . The more your sufferings closely resemble Mine, the happier will you be: . . . it is the proof that you are loved more than others, Be kind of heart toward those who will bring or have already brought the cross to you.’ . « » ‘Suffer with Me in reparation for the glory of My Father and for the ransom of souls’” (pp. 184 ff.).
brought to its close the celebration of His bloody mass, the sacrifice of the cross.
Before this last hour of our life comes, we should cultivate the practice of praying for the dying. At the door of some chapels may be seen the little inscription: Pray for those who are to die while holy mass is being offered. A certain French writer was one day much struck by this inscription and thereafter every day prayed for the dying while he was attending mass. Later on he was overtaken by a serious illness, which lasted for years; unable any longer to go to mass, he offered up his sufferings each morning for those who were to die in the course of the day. He thus had the joy of obtaining a number of unexpected conversions in extremis.'
Let us also pray for the priests who assist the dying. It is a sublime ministry to assist a soul in its agony, in that last struggle. Pray that the priest may arrive in time and, if the sick man is already sunk in profound torpor, that he may obtain from heaven the necessary moment of consciousness. Pray that the priest may be able to prompt the sick man to make the great sacrifices God demands of him and that by his priestly prayer, offered in the name of Christ, in the name
14 We recommend on this point two books by Adolphe Retté: Jusqu'à la fin du monde, a living commentary on that sentence of Pascal's: “Jesus will continue in His agony until the end of the world,” and Oraisons du silence. This latter work, from the fine passages it contains on solitude, poverty, detachment, suffering, peace, and the love of God, will prepare us for a happy death. It closes with these words: “May the rhythm of the hours yet remaining in my life here below be regulated solely by the sacred doxology, Gloria Patri et Filio. . . . Invocation full of strength, which makes me glad to have suffered and to go on suffering in Thy service, O Lord. Each time that I utter it with a contrite heart and with a right mind, I know that Thy grace will flow in upon my soul. . . . Grant that I may be crucified like the good thief on Thy right hand. Remember me, too, in Thy kingdom of heaven as Thou didst remember him.” That prayer was heard. Adolphe Retté died a holy death.
of Mary and of all the saints, he may obtain for him the final grace, the grace of graces.
As the priest is giving this assistance to the dying, he sometimes has the immense consolation of looking on, as it were, and watching our Lord save the soul as it suffers in that last moment. Hitherto perhaps he has prayed for a cure, but now that he sees the soul well prepared for death he ends by reciting confidently and with great peace that beautiful prayer of the Church:
Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, Kyrie eleison. . . . Proficiscere, anima christiana, de hoc mundo, in nomine Dei Patris omnipotentis, qui te creavit, in nomine Jesu Christi Filii Dei vivi, qui pro te passus est, in nomine Spiritus Sancti, qui in te effusus est (“Go forth from this world, O Christian soul, in the name of God the Father Almighty, who created thee; in the name of Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, who suffered for thee; in the name of the Holy Ghost, who was poured out upon thee; in the name of the holy and glorious Virgin Mary, Mother of God; in the name of Blessed Joseph, predestined spouse of the Virgin; in the name of the angels and archangels . . . ; in the name of the patriarchs and prophets; in the name of the Apostles and the Evangelists; in the name of the holy martyrs and confessors; and of all the saints of God. May thy place be this day in peace and thy abode in holy Sion, through Our Lord Jesus Christ.
The mystery of salvation
And so for us a holy death throws light on the mystery of predestination, that terrible and yet gracious mystery which concerns the choice of the elect.
We now have a better grasp of those two great principles formulated by St. Augustine and St. Thomas which we quoted at the beginning of the chapter.
On the one hand, “since God's love is the cause of things, no one thing would be better than another, if God did not will a greater good for one than for the other.”** No one thing would be better than another by reason of some salutary act, whether it be the first or the last, easy or difficult, in its inception or continuance, were he not more beloved of God. This is what our Lord refers to when He says of the elect, that “no man can snatch them out of the hand of My Father” (John 10: 29). He was speaking here of the efficacy of grace, which also led St. Paul to ask, “Who distinguisheth thee? Or what hast thou that thou hast not received ?” (I Cor. 4:7.) Could we find anywhere a more profound lesson in humility ?
On the other hand, God never commands the impossible, but love constrains Him to make the fulfilment of His precepts really possible for all, and especially for the dying; final grace is denied them only when they reject it by resisting the final appeal.
And therefore, say St. Augustine and St. Thomas, when the grace of final perseverance is granted, as it was to the good thief, it is through mercy; if it is not granted, it is as a just chastisement for sin and usually for repeated sin; it is a just chastisement, too, for the final act of resistance, as it was with the impenitent thief, who was lost even as he hung dying by the side of his Redeemer.
In the words of St. Prosper quoted by a council of the
18 Cf. St. Thomas, Ia, q.20, 2.3: Cum amor Dei sit causa bonitatis rerum, non esset aliquid alio melius, si Deus non vellet uni majus quam alteri. lbid., a.4: Ex hoe sunt aliqua meliora, quod Deus eis majus bonum vult. Here is the principle of predilection.
ninth century, “If some are saved, it is the gift of Him who saves; if some perish, it is the fault of them that perish.” 1°
Absolutely certain as are these two great principles when considered apart—the efficacy of grace and the possibility for all to be saved—how are they infinitely reconciled one with the other? Here is St. Paul’s answer: “O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are His judgments, and how unsearchable His ways!” (Rom. 11: 33.) No created intellect can perceive this intimate reconciliation before receiving the beatific vision. To perceive that is to perceive also how infinite justice, infinite mercy and a sovereign liberty are united and identified without any real distinction in the Deity, the intimate life of God, in precisely what is unutterable in Him, in that perfection which is exclusively His own and naturally incommunicable to creatures—in the Deity as it transcends being, unity, truth, goodness, intelligence, and love. For in all these absolute perfections creatures can participate naturally, whereas participation in the Deity is possible only through sanctifying grace, which is a participation in the divine nature not simply as intellectual life, but as a life strictly divine and the principle of that immediate vision and of that love which God has for Himself.”
16 Council of Quiersey, A.D. 853 (Denzinger, 318): Deus omnipotens omnes homines sine exceptione vult salvos fieri (I Tim. 2: 4), licet non omnes salventur. Quod autem quidam salvantur, salvantis est donum; quod autem quidam pereunt, pereuntium est meritum.
17 By their very nature both human souls and angels participate in the intellectual life and as such bear an analogical resemblance to God in so far as He is intelligent. Sanctifying grace, however, is a resemblance to God not simply as He is intelligent, but precisely as God; it is a participation in the Deity as such, or, if you will, in the divine intellectuality as it is divine. This is our reply to a question put to us by Père Gardeil in his excellent work, La structure de l'âme et l'expérience mystique, (1, 388), where he treats of the relation between sanctifying grace and the formal constituent of the divine nature. Sanctifying grace is a partici-
That we may perceive how the two principles of which we are speaking are intimately reconciled with each other, we must have immediate vision of the divine essence.
The more certain we are of the truth of these two principles, the more striking by contrast is the obscurity, the lighttranscending obscurity, enveloping the heights of God's intimate life in which they are united. They are like the two extremities of a dazzling arc disappearing above into what the mystics call the great darkness, which is none other than that light inaccessible in which God dwells (I Tim. 6: 16).
This, though very imperfectly expressed, is to our mind the subject of Augustine’s speculation, or rather let us say of his contemplation, and it is the constant source of inspiration to St. Thomas in these difficult questions. The divine obscurity here mentioned is far beyond the reach of speculative theology; it is the proper object of faith (fides est de non visis), of faith illumined by the gifts of understanding and wisdom (fides donis illustrata).
From this higher standpoint, the contemplation of this terrible yet gracious mystery brings peace. Penetrated through and through with this doctrine, Bossuet writes as follows to one tormented with all sorts of ideas about predestination:
When such thoughts come into the mind, when all our efforts to dissipate them have proved vain, we should end by abandoning pation in the divine nature considered not simply as being or as intellectual, but as strictly divine; grace is a physical and formal, though analogical participation in the Deity as such, whose formal concept transcends in its absolute eminence the concepts of being, unity, etc., in all of which it is possible for creatures to participate naturally. So also says Cajetan in his commentary on Ia, q.39, a.1 (n. 7): Deitas est super ens et super unum, etc. We have explained ourselves at some length on this point elsewhere (God, His Existence and His Nature, tr. by Dom Bede Rose, O.S.B., Vol. II, chap. 1, n. 42; chap. 3, n. 54). Père Gardeil himself speaks in the same sense (I, 246, 287).
ourselves to God, with the assurance that our salvation is infinitely more secure in God’s hands than in our own. Only thus shall we find peace. All teaching about predestination should end in this; this should be the effect produced in us by our sovereign Master’s secret, a secret we should adore without pretending to sound its depths. We must lose ourselves in the heights and impenetrable depths of God’s wisdom, must cast ourselves into the arms of His immense loving kindness, looking to Him for everything, yet without unburdening ourselves of that care for our salvation which He demands of us. . . . The result of this tormenting must be the abandonment of yourself to God, who by reason of His loving kindness and the promises He has made will then be bound to watch over you. This, while the present life lasts, must be the final solution to all those questions about predestination which beset you; henceforth you must find your repose not in yourself but solely in God and His fatherly loving kindness.” 18
Bossuet, speaking in the same strain in one of the finest chapters of his Méditations sur l'Evangile (Part Il, 72d day), says:
The proud man fears that unless he retains his salvation in his own hands, it is rendered too insecure; but in this he deceives himself. Can I find any security in myself? O my God, I feel my will escaping me at every moment, and even wert Thou willing to make me the sole master of my fate, I should refuse a power so dangerous to my weakness. Let it not be said that this doctrine of grace and predilection will bring pious souls to despair. How can anyone imagine he will give me greater assurance by throwing me back upon myself, by delivering me up to my own inconstancy? No, my God, I will have none of it. I can find no security except in abandoning myself to Thee, And this security is the greater when I reflect that those in whom Thou dost inspire this confidence, this complete self-
18 Lettres de direction (Œuvres, XI, 444).
abandonment to Thee, receive in this gentle prompting the highest mark of Thy loving kindness that can be had here on earth.
As we have shown elsewhere,’® this to us seems to be the true mind of St. Augustine at its loftiest, when finally he soars above all reasoning, and comes to rest in the divine obscurity where the two aspects of the mystery, to all appearances diametrically opposed, must at last be reconciled. As formulated in the two principles—God never commands the impossible; no one would be better than another, were he not more beloved of God—these two aspects of the mystery are as two stars of the first magnitude shining brightly in the dark night of the spirit, yet wholly inadequate to reveal to us the uttermost depths of the firmament, the secret of the Deity.
Until we are given the beatific vision, grace by a secret instinct allays all our fears as to the intimate reconciliation of infinite justice and infinite mercy in the Deity, and this it does because it is itself a participation in the Deity, the light of life far surpassing the natural light of either the angelic or the human intellect.
Doubtless the whole of our interior life, every one of our actions, are shrouded in mystery; for every salutary act presupposes the mystery of grace from which it proceeds, and all sin isa mystery of iniquity, presupposing the divine permission that evil shall exist in view of some higher good purpose which will often escape us and will be clearly seen only in heaven. But in this obscurity characteristic of faith and also of contemplation here on earth, we are reassured when we
19 “La volonté salvifique chez S. Augustin,” in Revue Thontiste, 1930, pp. 473- 487. Also Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, art. “Prédestination,” conclusion.
remember that God’s will is to save, that Christ has died for us, that His sacrifice is perpetuated in substance on the altar, and that our salvation is more secure in His hands than it would be in ours, since we are more certain of the rectitude of the divine intentions than of our own, even the best of them.
Let us abandon ourselves in all confidence and love to His infinite mercy: there can be no better way of ensuring His condescending mercy toward us at this moment and above all at the hour of our death.
Let us frequently call to mind those beautiful words of the psalm, recurring each week in Thursday’s office of Tierce: “Cast thy care upon the Lord, and He shall sustain thee: He shall not suffer the just to waver forever” (Ps. 54: 23). ,
Let us call to mind the beautiful canticle of Tobias: “Thou art great, O Lord, forever, and Thy kingdom is unto all ages. For Thou scourgest, and Thou savest: Thou leadest down to hell, and bringest up again. He hath chastised us for our iniquities: and He will save us for His own mercy” (Tob. 13:1).
In this self-abandonment we shall find peace. As our Lord hung dying for us, He experienced in His holy soul the keenest suffering our sins had caused, yet likewise the profoundest peace. So, too, in every Christian death, as in that of the good thief, there is suffering, a holy fear and trembling before the infinite justice of God, and a profound peace, a most intimate union prevailing between them. Nevertheless it is peace, the tranquillity that comes of true order, which predominates, as is apparent from these words of our Lord as He died: ‘It is consummated. . . . Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit” (Luke 23: 46).2
Footnotes
Chapter 28 of 31