Scripture Notes: The Riches of His Grace (Ephesians 1)

In the opening paragraphs of his Letter to the Ephesians, St. Paul praises God and proclaims the great blessings that He has showered upon us in Christ. God has “blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,” Paul marvels (Eph 1:3). He has chosen us and made us “holy and blameless before Him” (Eph 1:4). He has made us His own children in Jesus Christ, sons and daughters in the Son, heirs to a glorious inheritance of life and love. 

Indeed, Jesus has redeemed us by His own blood, giving His life on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins. God has made known to us His will, His plan to unite all things in Christ, everything in Heaven and on earth, all together, all in Him.  

For all his eloquence, Paul can hardly take it in. We, too, should be left breathless if we stop to think about what God has done for us, and all “according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us” (Eph 1:7). God is not bound to do anything for us. He created us, but we fell into sin and continue to fall into sin. Yet He has never stopped loving us, not even a little, and He constantly draws us back to Him through His grace, 

What is grace? The Catechism defines it as “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” (#1996). Grace, the Catechism continues, is actually “a participation in the life of God”(#1997). And God, Paul asserts, lavishes grace upon us. God wants us to share in His very life, so He gives us grace to do that (sanctifying grace), and He helps us with actual graces at every step of the way that we may know Him, love Him, and obey Him, that we may conform our lives and ourselves to Him. May we cooperate with every bit of God’s lavish grace and be truly thankful for these riches.