Question Three: On the Time at Which Grace Is Caused by the Sacraments

St. Thomas III, q. 69, a. 10; Suppl., q. 9, a. 1.

56. Notions. - The sacraments confer grace ex opere operato upon those who do not place an obstacle; which formula the Protestants explain erroneously, as if Catholics taught that the external work itself justifies without faith or a good internal movement or disposition of the one acting, provided that in him there is not an actual contrary disposition, but he conducts himself negatively. - But all Catholics teach that the obstacle is not only a contrary act, but also the state of habitual adherence to sin, for the removal of which supernatural acts of faith, hope, and imperfect contrition are required; and these acts, although they are not the cause of grace, since they do not influence its production, nevertheless are the condition without which it would not be produced, because they remove that which would impede the infusion of grace.

Indeed, the greater or lesser that disposition is, the greater or lesser grace the sacrament confers (n. 40): in the same way fire burns wood more efficaciously when it is drier, although dryness is a mere condition removing what prevents, and is not the efficient cause of combustion.

For this to be well understood, it must be defined what fiction and obstacle are in the sacraments.

A. Fiction is the same as simulation: it consists in this, that someone by word or deed shows what is not in the truth of the matter. It is twofold:

1. essential, when someone feigns that he wills to receive a sacrament while he does not will it: this renders the sacrament invalid;

2. accidental, when someone receives a sacrament without the due disposition but with an obstacle: for one who receives a sacrament shows that he wills to receive grace; whence if his will remains adhering to sin, he shows something other than what is in the truth of the matter, and thus there is a fiction by which he feigns that he is disposed for the effect of the sacrament while he is not: then the sacrament is valid, but formless, i.e., without fruit or the form of grace.

B. An obstacle is twofold:

1. a positive, contrary, or formal obstacle is the fully voluntary and gravely culpable lack of the disposition required for the grace of the sacrament, for example, lack of faith or of imperfect contrition; namely, the sin of unworthy reception of the sacrament, or the act here and now posited contrary to the infusion of grace;

2. a negative or material obstacle is the unconscious lack of the disposition necessary for the grace of the sacrament, from ignorance or forgetfulness not gravely culpable, or the mere state of adherence to sin.

One can also distinguish: the obstacle simply, which, as we have said, impedes the principal effect of the sacrament, grace itself; and the obstacle in a qualified respect, which impedes only some secondary effect.

57. Principles. - I. The sacraments do not operate ex opere operato before they are really received. For an efficient cause does not operate before it exists; whence if someone with perfect contrition has the desire or vow of a sacrament, he receives sanctifying grace ex opere operantis, yet not that which is the res et sacramentum, nor sacramental grace.

II. Sacraments received invalidly on account of essential fiction never produce anything, because in truth they are not sacraments.

III. Sacraments validly received effect:

a) that which is the res et sacramentum at the time at which they are received; otherwise they would not have their signification. The Eucharist is excepted, in which the res et sacramentum, namely Christ, exists present before reception.

b) likewise sanctifying and sacramental grace, if an obstacle is not present;

c) if an obstacle is present, provided and for as long as the res et sacramentum remains, they confer this grace at the moment at which the obstacle is removed, and indeed as often as the sinner is justified. The reason is that the sacraments operate according to the norm of natural causes, which, if they are impeded from producing an effect because of an obstacle, immediately upon the obstacle being removed obtain the effect, provided that in the subject there has been left a disposition toward it. But the sacraments once completed leave in the soul a disposition which demands grace. Therefore, once the obstacle has been removed, they confer grace for as long as the disposition demanding it remains; and this theologians call the reviviscence of the sacraments. Therefore reviviscence consists in this, that a valid sacrament, but one formless because of the indisposition of the subject, once this indisposition has been removed, obtains its effect, namely that of grace, whether primary or secondary.

The obstacle is removed:

1. a negative obstacle, per se, by the disposition whose lack was the obstacle, i.e., by imperfect contrition alone, as was said in n. 39;

2. per accidens, if mortal sin supervenes, it is removed only by perfect contrition, or by imperfect contrition with a new sacrament: the reason is that no sacrament has the power of remitting sin committed after it;

3. a positive or contrary obstacle is removed also in this way, namely by perfect contrition, or by imperfect contrition with a new sacrament: for fiction, insofar as it impedes the effect of the sacrament, is by nature posterior to the sacrament, just as the effect itself is; therefore by this sacrament the sin of fiction or of unworthy reception is not remitted.

58. Corollaries. - From the principle laid down it follows:

1. That Baptism, Confirmation, and Order revive during the whole of life, because they leave a permanent disposition in the soul, the character. This is beyond every doubt for Baptism, because the removal of original sin is absolutely necessary for salvation, and it cannot be obtained either by the sacrament of Penance, or by repeated Baptism, and therefore not by the vow of this latter.

2. That the Eucharist does not revive, because, once the sacrament has passed, nothing remains in the soul; but if someone, by sorrowing for sins before the species are corrupted, were to obtain grace, this would not be reviviscence, because the sacrament is still present.

3. That Extreme Unction and Matrimony revive during the same illness or the same marriage: for so long the res et sacramentum remains. Thus the far more common opinion.

4. That Penance probably revives, in the case, which is held by many theologians as possible, in which contrition is had sufficient as a part of the sacrament, but insufficient as a disposition for grace: it revives when a disposition sufficient for grace comes to it, but only once, because in this way the right to remission of sin granted by absolution has already been exhausted.