THE SUPERNATURAL LIRE lying Grace. To put it in another way, if the soul responds to Supernatural Impulse it receives Supernatural Life. A third result is, as has already been stated many times, that man’s soul is fitted for the life of heaven. A fourth result is that men by grace become sons of God. By birth we are creatures of God, servants of God, but not sons. Once we receive the Supernatural Life we have received that which will one day enable us to know Him directly. But it is proper to God’s own Nature — and to no other — to know God directly. Thus, by a gift of God, we are enabled to do something which belongs to God’s own Nature, hence there is a real similitude of nature which is rightly expressed by the word “Sons.” This is what St. Peter means when he says that we shall be made partakers of the Divine Nature: and the Church expresses the same truth when she says that grace is a “created participation in the life of God.” Any man possessed of the Supernatural Life is of necessity possessed also of faith, hope and charity. There is no limit to the degree of intensity of the life. By baptism we receive it. If by mortal sin we lose it, then by the Sacrament of Penance we regain it. By the Blessed Eucharist principally, it receives addition. By prayer and by meritorious action of every kind man obtains from God increase of the Supernatural Life. And the whole purpose of man’s life upon earth might be stated as the obtaining, 127