We have a responsibility to make sure people know Jesus personally. Not whether they have only heard of him.

God does not give us grace for our prayers or our works. It is his selfless gift of love, says priest Branislav Kozuch about the sixth central truth of the faith. We have a responsibility to make sure people know Jesus personally. Not whether they have only heard of him. Following our series on the Ten Commandments and the Seven Sacraments, we have prepared a series of interviews in which we take a closer look at Catholic teaching summarized in the six cardinal truths. In the previous parts, you could read: 

Archbishop Cyril Vasil on the six cardinal truths. He is obliged to respect it and to bear witness to it.

Joseph Gallovich on the first truth: Man’s relationship to God should be balanced. Neither excessive fear nor belittling

Cyril Shestak on the second truth: God reveals Himself to us as an inseparable relationship of three persons. Stephen Palocko on the third truth: To call some actions sin is nowadays regarded as a sign of disrespect, even hatred

Milan Lach on the fourth truth: Man forgets that God loves him

Paweł Stefan Wojnowski on the fifth truth: Thanks to the soul, we can rise beyond matter to look “into the eyes of God.”

“In our Christian understanding and perception, it is unfortunate that we have fallen into a very wrong business-mindedness. It is against the biblical and correct Christian attitude,” said Branislav Kozuch, a priest of the Spiš diocese, in an interview, explaining further:

“Many people think that if they go on pilgrimage, they will receive something from God in return. When they pray a novena, they receive something else from him. When they pray the rosary, they think God will reward them. God does not give us grace for our prayers, works, or acts of penance. It is his selfless gift of love.”

He also noted that “the apostles needed to announce Christ when they went out into the world. They did not need to change the world and make it Christian. We do the opposite. We do everything according to Christianity and we want everyone to be Christian, but without proclaiming Christ. And this will never succeed.”

The doctrines of grace contain the truths of Revelation as they apply to the supernatural life of man. However, many people need to be made aware of their supernatural life. What essential information should we know about God’s grace in this context?

Many people do not understand the word “grace” alone and do not grasp it. Yes, it connects us to something difficult for worldly people to perceive, namely, the supernatural life. We Christians believe that in addition to body and spirit, we have an immortal soul that makes us different from all other creatures. And grace is a supernatural gift from God that empowers us to live a supernatural life through our souls.

Our supernatural life does not begin until after death. It started at the moment of conception when God gave us a soul. As believers, we confess that human life transcends death; it is immortal. After death, we do not end up in the grave but continue with life. And this is the mystery of the eternal human soul, whose immortality is given precisely by God’s grace.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, in paragraph 2000, points out that a distinction must be made between sanctifying grace and assisting grace. What is the difference between them?

The helping grace of God is God’s concrete help for any situation. For a particular moment, when we are dealing with something, for example, struggling with temptations, we seek to be faithful to our marriage vows. Such grace is God’s gift of helping us to do some good supernaturally. If we cooperate with this grace, every good deed of ours can become a supernatural deed, for by it, we gain merit for heaven and eternity.

We receive sanctifying grace in baptism. It is a permanent state in which we partake of the life of God. We lose it by sin. Only the baptized have sanctifying grace. Yes, in the strict sense of the word, only baptized people have sanctifying grace. Can we obtain the helping grace of God by our own doing – prayer, merit, as it were, “quid pro quo”? We are called to ask for these gifts – graces from God. The Gospel teaches us that the Father gives before we ask him. Because he knows what we need, our loving Father loves to provide us with gifts. His character is not that of a merchant, a judge, or a policeman we want to please or from whom we wish to bargain things somehow away. Grace is a gift. That means that we can only get it if we earn it.

But by our actions and life, we contribute to the fruit of that grace. The initiative, however, comes from God’s side. It is not because we have promised God something or because we have earned something.

How helpful are prayers, novenas, and rosaries in helping us to ask for God’s graces?

In our Christian understanding and perception, it is unfortunate that we have fallen into a state of business-mindedness that is very wrong. It is against the biblical and proper Christian attitude. Many people think they will get something from God in return if they go on a pilgrimage. When they pray a novena, they get something else from Him. When they pray the rosary, they think God will reward them.

God does not give us grace for our prayers, works, or acts of penance. It is his selfless gift of love. We cannot earn God’s grace in any way, but we are to cooperate with it so that its fruit will be as great as possible. And this is the crucial moment: our cooperation with grace.