To cooperate with grace means nothing else than reverently to accept and bravely foster the impulse and motion which my activity has already received from God; or, more precisely, not to interrupt it perversely or wantonly arrest its course. Therefore to cooperate with grace means really to be of good will… Consequently my personal contribution is a very small and simple thing. In its nature it is no greater than an achievement than the achievement of a little child which allows its father to lift it up that it may pluck an apple from the tree, and allows him then to take its tiny hand in his and wrench the apple loose. “You plucked it and it is yours,” says the father to his child, and the child accepts its father’s love without any resistance. And that is all we need, the small and simple acceptance of the little child.

And so we get a clear understanding of the meaning and substance of our Christianity. To be a Christian means to be redeemed, not through one’s own strength, but “through Christ our Lord.” To be a Christian means the knowledge that I have all in Christ. Where Christ is, there is no anxiety or fear.

Father Karl Adam
Tags: Quotes, Catholic, Christian