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Show NATURE AND GRACE. Over and above the cultivation of our nature, we know that, as Christians, Chris-tians, we have a higher life within us, the life of grace, to which we nave oeeu uuiu at uajjuom. nmuic unaided could not get us to God or to heaven, any more than the stream could rise above its source. The end and the means must be In proportion. As God destined us for Himselt, He superadded to our nature the life of grace by means of which the soul of man Is placed in a state of favor and friendship with Him. Thus grace Is grafted upon nature and the spiritual. They are often called by different names, such as the natural and the supernatural life; nature and grace; the old man and the new man; the natural man and the spiritual spir-itual man. , We must know that the life of grace contains the theological virtues, as nature contains her natural powers. pow-ers. Nature lives through her powers; pow-ers; using, cultivating them, putting them forth, working the works of life through them, thus improving and developing and perfecting them by -use. So in the Christian life, we have to live our life of grace by the powers of grace, which are faith, hope and charity; and as we use these spiritual powers they grow more and more, they strengthen by exercise, they become formed habits of the soul, they come forth into act renewed acts devolp the habit, and' the habit becomes the principle of fresh acts. Thus a soul goes on to its perfection, which is the ultimate end of human life. It belongs, then, to every child of the true Church, if he or she Is to become a practical Catholic, to look well at the outset, to his or her life of grace. Before all. it concerns parents par-ents to see to this. "First make clean the inside of the cup and platter, that the outside may become clean." As soon as children open their eyes to the light of reason then is the time. Nature is there grace must be there. Will and heart are there hope and charity must be there. Sad, sad will it be if grace is stifled and supplanted by nature. There is Holy Mother Church ready to have a care of the children that have been born through her to, God by baptism. Let parents see to their bounden duty of bringing their children from the first, and keeping them, under the influence of Holy Church, that the, life of grace, with its faith, hope and charity, may not be less carefully attended to than the life of nature. Sacerdos. |