Understanding grace

Question

Grace is the free and unmerited favor of God, as manifested in the salvation of sinners and the bestowal of blessings

Medjugorje, Message 25 June 2014

Dear children! The Most High is giving me the grace that I can still be with you and to lead you in prayer towards the way of peace.

Did Mary get unmerited favor of God so that she could appear to visionaries? This makes sense because there is nothing she can do in heaven to be granted this grace. So the definition of grace is valid.

But...on earth...

I always thought that we get graces when we pray, do good deeds and so on. So grace comes through some kind of action. So if Grace is the free and unmerited favor of God we would all be living in a state of full grace unless God doesn't want that. But I guess he would want that. So the definition of grace isn't valid for the people living on earth...

my question is how grace can be the free and unmerited favor of God if in order to get it we need to do something(i.e. pray). If we don't need to do anything then we should all be full of grace...

Answer 1

Firstly, Medjugorje is a false apparition.

Secondly:

I always thought that we get graces when we pray, do good deeds and so on. So grace comes through some kind of action.

We can make ourselves more cooperative with and receptive to God's graces by praying, but our actions do not of themselves produce grace; otherwise, we would be able to save ourselves on our own accord and without God's supernatural help, which is the Pelagian heresy, that Christ's passion, by which he merited us graces, isn't necessary for our salvation. The sacraments actually produce grace of themselves (ex opere operato), though.

There are many types of grace. Some God freely gives (e.g., the grace to convert a sinner toward prayer and repentance). Others are merited. There are sanctifying, gratuitous, cooperating, and operating graces (cf. St. Thomas Aquinas's Treatise on Grace in his Summa Theologica).

Read Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P.'s introduction to his commentary on the treatise on grace of St. Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologica. It presents all the various meanings of the word grace (χάρις or "charis" in Greek) as well as the misconceptions (errors) people have historically had regarding grace.

Answer 2

Starting with a definition of grace

CCC 1996 Our justification comes from the grace of God. Grace is favor, the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of God, adoptive sons, partakers of the divine nature and of eternal life. ^{[cf. Jn 1:12-18; 17:3; Rom 8:14-17; 2 Pet 1:3-4.]}

Followed by a definition of prayer

Penny Catechism, 141
What is prayer?
Prayer is the raising up of the mind and heart to God.

Understanding the question, if grace is from God, why Mary?

A. Because God, in his goodness has wanted his creatures, as his instruments, his servants, and ultimately as his children, to participate in his works, which include those of grace. Mary case is unique, she is not the source of grace, but the Mediatrix of all graces, i.e., through whom all graces are distributed and come to us. Easy to understand because the source of grace, Jesus, came through her.

I watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding awhile back and if I recall correctly, the mother was explaining to the bride to be the relationship in a home, between husband and wife, how the wife is like the neck, pointing the head to where it should look. Borrowing, we can think of Mary mediatrix as who through whom all that flows to the [Mystical] body and from the body to the head[=Christ], passes.

Prefacing before answering the other question posed, I did not follow the logic that concludes that we are full of grace, because, we are not and we need only look at ourselves, and at the world around us.

If God gives it freely, why do we need to pray?

A. Praying being raising our mind (thinking of him) and heart (loving him) to God, talking with him, is what a good child does with a Father who madly loves them.

Praying for grace, he has it, we do not. It is what a needy child does before his [almighty] Father, who cannot deny him anything that is good for them.^{[cf. Mt 7:11]}

cf. Lk 11:13 (RSVCE)
13 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

cf. II. Grace | Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1996-2005 esp. 2003

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Closing note: A catholic ought to be obedient and submit to the Church's judgment on the supposed Marian apparitions at Medjugorje.