A Grace We All Need: Final Perseverance

Everyone, no matter their state in life or way of life, can attest to this one principle: life is hard. We live in a world that, while created by God and inherently good, shares the scars of sin. A loss of sensing sin is found in every place in society, from the poorest individual to the highest paid CEO. This is not to say that every single person has a loss of the sense of sin, for we have living saints that walk with us (some you wouldn’t dare to imagine were in union with God based off appearances). Saying that the loss of sensing sin is found throughout our culture is only to say that, in general, there has been such a loss of awareness of sin. From the pulpit to the simplest household, sin is not preached about enough. However, I would also surmise that something else is preached about even less: the grace of final perseverance.

People think they will live forever, but here is the real two-fold truth: you will breathe your last breath and face the Just Judge for your place in eternity via the particular judgement. People have forgotten that there are Four Last Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven, Hell. When you die, you will be judge by Jesus, who will offer you mercy. You will either reject that mercy and go to Hell, or accept that mercy and go to Heaven (after a lot of Purgatory for most individuals who die in a state of grace). Remember, very few people go straight to Heaven. However, it could be suspected that those very few also prayed for the grace of final perseverance.

As the Catechism says, “Faith is an entirely free gift that God makes to man” (CCC 162). By virtue of the Sacrament of Baptism, we are able to be partakers in the Divine Life of God. We are given the virtue and gift of faith at our Baptism, but we can also lose that “priceless gift” (cf. CCC 162). That is a major reason we have the Sacrament of Confession, to be healed and to be forgiven; Once forgiven via absolution and our penance is completed, our soul is free and our baptismal garment, received at Baptism as an indelible mark on our soul, is “white as snow.”

We need our soul to receive strength to fight the good fight, as well as to be nourished with the very Bread of Angels. This is where, respectively, the Sacraments of Confirmation (Chrismation if you are from the East), and the Most Holy Eucharist help us. In our fight, we sometimes get spiritually or physically sick, in which we need healing and strengthening. This is where the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick is essential. As it was good that we should not be alone or isolated, God gives us a family (fully spiritual or spiritually biological) to help us get to Heaven and for us to help them get to Heaven. This is where the Sacraments of Holy Orders and Holy Matrimony remain fundamental to our journey.

Here is a small and short recommendation: as soon as you wake up, pray a short prayer for the grace of final perseverance. It is not absolutely assuring you that you will be saved in the end, but it will give you the hope to work out your salvation “with fear and trembling” as St. Paul says. If we “love Him and do His holy will,” we can rest in this grace-filled hope, given to us by God, that we will be given salvation (if we persevere through this spiritual race) by the One who loves us (cf. CCC 1821).