Grace

Grace is a free and undeserved gift from God that allows man to participate in the life of God. Grace is necessary for salvation.

Only by divine grace man can man know who God is, enjoy friendship with Him, and share in his divinity.

Grace is not a natural characteristic of man and not something he can create by himself. It must be provided by God.

Actual grace provides helps that draw man closer to God and make him aware of opportunities to increase sanctifying grace.

Sanctifying or habitual grace is the grace that actually transforms the soul and and allows man to live as a child of God and be with God in Heaven.

Baptized Catholics must always seek God’s grace and cooperate with the actual graces that God provides.

Prayer, good works, and receiving the the sacraments increase sanctifying grace in the soul. Sanctifying grace is lost through sin.

The gift of God’s life:

For the sake of our salvation:

Equipment for spiritual battle:

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,” in union with the only Son. He receives the life of the Spirit who breathes charity into him and who forms the Church.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 1997

A gracious gift to people trapped in darkness:

Made alive after spiritual death:

All of us once lived among them in the desires of our flesh, following the wishes of the flesh and the impulses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of the great love He had for us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, brought us to life with Christ (by grace you have been saved), raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavens in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from you; it is the gift of God; it is not from works, so no one may boast.
Ephesians 2: 3-9

A supernatural gift given by God:

A gift that is more than what is deserved:

All men are called to be part of this catholic unity of the people of God which in promoting universal peace presages it. And there belong to or are related to it in various ways, the Catholic faithful, all who believe in Christ, and indeed the whole of mankind, for all men are called by the grace of God to salvation.
Pope Paul VI, Lumen Gentium, November 21, 1964

Cooperating with God’s grace with human acts:

Responding to the grace given to us: