Bootstrapping the Interior Life: Grace<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Pursuing the interior life\u2014a life of holiness\u2014is not easy, but fortunately God doesn't leave us to our own resources. As I noted a couple of weeks ago,\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/crywoof\/2013\/10\/bootstrapping-the-interior-life-grace\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Bootstrapping the Interior Life: Grace\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Pursuing the interior life\u2014a life of holiness\u2014is not easy, but fortunately God doesn't leave us to our own resources. 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{"id":402,"date":"2013-10-27T03:23:58","date_gmt":"2013-10-27T08:23:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/crywoof\/?p=402"},"modified":"2014-12-23T23:34:54","modified_gmt":"2014-12-24T04:34:54","slug":"bootstrapping-the-interior-life-grace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/crywoof\/2013\/10\/bootstrapping-the-interior-life-grace\/","title":{"rendered":"Bootstrapping the Interior Life: Grace"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

To put it another way, you can\u2019t get to know God on your own; He\u2019s got to be part of the process.<\/p>\n

God is free to give grace to anyone He pleases, and He does; if he didn\u2019t, no unbelievers would ever come to Him. But for those of us in the Church He provides special means of grace that we should be eager to take advantage of: the sacraments. It\u2019s not that we can force Him to give us grace; it\u2019s that He has promised that if we make use of the sacraments, He will always give it to us. And not only will He give it to us, because of His promise we can know for sure that we\u2019re getting it.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a small catch. I gather (I am not a professional theologian) that to receive the full benefit you need to expect to receive His grace, and to make use of it. Cooperation is key. (But that\u2019s a post for another day.) So be eager to attend mass and receive Jesus in the Eucharist; and be just as eager to go to confession on a regular basis; and expect it to make a difference.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"