The beginnings of the infused habits of the moral and theological virtues are not from our own strivings but from God. They come to us with the infusion of sanctifying grace. This grace is bestowed on us by God through the Sacraments; or, in default of the Sacraments, it is given to us by God's free bounty in response to our turning towards Him with acts of charity and repentance of our sins. We then receive the faculty of eliciting actions of every kind on the supernatural level. Our souls are enriched with new endowments, viz. the powers and facilities for all the virtues; and this makes them beautiful in the sight of God as presenting more fully the image of His perfections. The acquired habits of virtue are established in our souls as we gain the knowledge of them, become familiarized with them, learn to esteem and desire them, and finally put them into frequent practice. The infused and acquired habits must be united. We must not be contented with the mere potentiality of exercising faith or justice on the supernatural plane; we must bring that potentiality into effect as occasion offers, and repeat the actions of faith or justice, exercising our natural faculties until they are moulded to the forms of virtue as by a second nature. The infused habit, or supernatural potentiality, must take shape in the acquired habit of action, to bring forth fruit and prove its vitality. Without that infusion from God, the habit of action, of belief or of justice, e.g., is only of the natural order and is dead as regards the higher life. Continue Reading.
