Salesian Literature

Chapter 7:  Providence is wonderful in the variety of graces bestowed on man

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God’s providence, therefore, held a peerless privilege in store for the Queen of queens, the Mother who gives birth to all noble loving (Eccl. 24:24), the one uniquely perfect creature.  For others too he destined special privileges. However, God went still further in his supreme goodness: he lavished a profusion of graces and blessings on all mankind as well as on angelic nature.

 

Although this generous sufficiency of grace is thus showered on human nature as a whole, so that we are all equally favoured by the rich profusion of blessings offered, still the variety of these favours is so tremendous that it is hard to tell which gives greater cause for wonderment – the magnitude of so many different graces or the manifold character of such magnitude.

 

The angels (as St. Augustine[1] and St. Thomas[2] assure us) received grace in proportion to the variety of their natures, since they are distinct from each other either by difference of species or, at least, of rank; so that there are as many different perfections of grace as there are angels.

 

Although where mankind is concerned, grace is not given in proportion to natural qualities, yet God in his loving kindness is so fond (you might say) of providing graces that he rings infinite changes on them, to produce the brilliant mosaic of his redemption, his mercy.

 

However, we must take care never to pry into why the supreme wisdom gives grace to one rather than another; or why he lavishes his favour in one place, but not in another.  No, Theotimus, never indulge in such curiosity.  After all, everyone has enough and more than enough grace to save his soul – so what cause has any man alive for complaint, if God is pleased to bestow more graces on some than on others?

 

It is an impertinence, then, to try to find out why St. Paul was not given St. Peter’s grace, or St. Peter given St. Paul’s; why St. Anthony was not St. Athanasius, or St. Athanasius St. Jerome.  There is only one answer to such questions: the church is a garden patterned with countless flowers, so there must be a variety of sizes, colours, scents – of perfections, after all.  Each has its value, its charm, its gaiety; while the whole vast cluster of these variations makes for beauty in its most graceful form.

 

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[1]  City of God, 11:9; 16:12,9.

[2]  Summa Theologica, 1.q.62.a.6.

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