CCC 308 The truth that God is at work in all the actions of his creatures is inseparable from faith in God the Creator. God is the first cause who operates in and through secondary causes: “For God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”¹ Far from diminishing the creature’s dignity, this truth enhances it. Drawn from nothingness by God’s power, wisdom and goodness, it can do nothing if it is cut off from its origin, for “without a Creator the creature vanishes.”² Still less can a creature attain its ultimate end without the help of God’s grace.³

CCC 517 Christ’s whole life is a mystery of redemption. Redemption comes to us above all through the blood of his cross,⁴ but this mystery is at work throughout Christ’s entire life:
– already in his Incarnation through which by becoming poor he enriches us with his poverty;⁵
– in his hidden life which by his submission atones for our disobedience;⁶
– in his word which purifies its hearers;⁷
– in his healings and exorcisms by which “he took our infirmities and bore our diseases”;⁸
– and in his Resurrection by which he justifies us.⁹

CCC 737 The mission of Christ and the Holy Spirit is brought to completion in the Church, which is the Body of Christ and the Temple of the Holy Spirit. This joint mission henceforth brings Christ’s faithful to share in his communion with the Father in the Holy Spirit. The Spirit prepares men and goes out to them with his grace, in order to draw them to Christ. The Spirit manifests the risen Lord to them, recalls his word to them and opens their minds to the understanding of his Death and Resurrection. He makes present the mystery of Christ, supremely in the Eucharist, in order to reconcile them, to bring them into communion with God, that they may “bear much fruit.”¹⁰

CCC 755 “The Church is a cultivated field, the tillage of God. On that land the ancient olive tree grows whose holy roots were the prophets and in which the reconciliation of Jews and Gentiles has been brought about and will be brought about again. That land, like a choice vineyard, has been planted by the heavenly cultivator. Yet the true vine is Christ who gives life and fruitfulness to the branches, that is, to us, who through the Church remain in Christ, without whom we can do nothing.”¹¹

CCC 787 From the beginning, Jesus associated his disciples with his own life, revealed the mystery of the Kingdom to them, and gave them a share in his mission, joy, and sufferings.¹² Jesus spoke of a still more intimate communion between him and those who would follow him: “Abide in me, and I in you. .. I am the vine, you are the branches.”¹³ And he proclaimed a mysterious and real communion between his own body and ours: “He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.”¹⁴

CCC 859 Jesus unites them to the mission he received from the Father. As “the Son can do nothing of his own accord,” but receives everything from the Father who sent him, so those whom Jesus sends can do nothing apart from him,¹⁵ from whom they received both the mandate for their mission and the power to carry it out. Christ’s apostles knew that they were called by God as “ministers of a new covenant,” “servants of God,” “ambassadors for Christ,” “servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.”¹⁶

CCC 864 “Christ, sent by the Father, is the source of the Church’s whole apostolate”; thus the fruitfulness of apostolate for ordained ministers as well as for lay people clearly depends on their vital union with Christ.¹⁷ In keeping with their vocations, the demands of the times and the various gifts of the Holy Spirit, the apostolate assumes the most varied forms. But charity, drawn from the Eucharist above all, is always “as it were, the soul of the whole apostolate.”¹⁸

CCC 1108 In every liturgical action the Holy Spirit is sent in order to bring us into communion with Christ and so to form his Body. The Holy Spirit is like the sap of the Father’s vine which bears fruit on its branches.¹⁹ The most intimate cooperation of the Holy Spirit and the Church is achieved in the liturgy. The Spirit who is the Spirit of communion, abides indefectibly in the Church. For this reason the Church is the great sacrament of divine communion which gathers God’s scattered children together. Communion with the Holy Trinity and fraternal communion are inseparably the fruit of the Spirit in the liturgy.²⁰

CCC 1615 This unequivocal insistence on the indissolubility of the marriage bond may have left some perplexed and could seem to be a demand impossible to realize. However, Jesus has not placed on spouses a burden impossible to bear, or too heavy – heavier than the Law of Moses.²¹ By coming to restore the original order of creation disturbed by sin, he himself gives the strength and grace to live marriage in the new dimension of the Reign of God. It is by following Christ, renouncing themselves, and taking up their crosses that spouses will be able to “receive” the original meaning of marriage and live it with the help of Christ.²² This grace of Christian marriage is a fruit of Christ’s cross, the source of all Christian life.

CCC 1694 Incorporated into Christ by Baptism, Christians are “dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” and so participate in the life of the Risen Lord.²³ Following Christ and united with him,²⁴ Christians can strive to be “imitators of God as beloved children, and walk in love”²⁵ by conforming their thoughts, words and actions to the “mind. .. which is yours in Christ Jesus,”²⁶ and by following his example.²⁷

CCC 1988 Through the power of the Holy Spirit we take part in Christ’s Passion by dying to sin, and in his Resurrection by being born to a new life; we are members of his Body which is the Church, branches grafted onto the vine which is himself:²⁸
[God] gave himself to us through his Spirit. By the participation of the Spirit, we become communicants in the divine nature. .. For this reason, those in whom the Spirit dwells are divinized.²⁹

CCC 2074 Jesus says: “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”³⁰ The fruit referred to in this saying is the holiness of a life made fruitful by union with Christ. When we believe in Jesus Christ, partake of his mysteries, and keep his commandments, the Savior himself comes to love, in us, his Father and his brethren, our Father and our brethren. His person becomes, through the Spirit, the living and interior rule of our activity. “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”³¹

CCC 2732 The most common yet most hidden temptation is our lack of faith. It expresses itself less by declared incredulity than by our actual preferences. When we begin to pray, a thousand labors or cares thought to be urgent vie for priority; once again, it is the moment of truth for the heart: what is its real love? Sometimes we turn to the Lord as a last resort, but do we really believe he is? Sometimes we enlist the Lord as an ally, but our heart remains presumptuous. In each case, our lack of faith reveals that we do not yet share in the disposition of a humble heart: “Apart from me, you can do nothing.”³²

1 Phil 2:13; cf. 1 Cor 12:6.
2 GS 36 § 3.
3 Cf. Mt 19:26; Jn 15:5; 14:13
4 Cf. Eph 1:7; Col 1:13-14; 1 Pt 1:18-19.
5 Cf. 2 Cor 8:9.
6 Cf. Lk 2:51.
7 Cf. Jn 15:3.
8 Mt 8:17; cf. Is 53:4.
9 Cf. Rom 4:25.
10 Jn 15:8,16.
11 LG 6; cf. 1 Cor 39; Rom 11:13-26; Mt 21:32-43 and parallels; Isa 51-7; Jn 15:1-5.
12 Cf. Mk 1:16-20; 3:13-19; Mt 13:10-17; Lk 10:17-20; 22:28-30.
13 Jn 15:4-5.
14 Jn 6:56.
15 Jn 5:19, 30; cf. Jn 15:5.
16 2 Cor 3:6; 6:4; 5:20; 1 Cor 4:1.
17 AA 4; cf. Jn 15:5.
18 AA 3.
19 Cf. Jn 15:1-17; Gal 5:22.
20 Cf. 1 Jn 1:3-7.
21 Cf. Mk 8:34; Mt 11:29-30.
22 Cf. Mt 19:11.
23 Rom 6:11 and cf. 6:5; cf. Col 2:12.
24 Cf. Jn 15:5.
25 Eph 5:1-2.
26 Phil 2:5.
27 Cf. Jn 13:12-16.
28 Cf. 1 Cor 12; Jn 15:1 4.
29 St. Athanasius, Ep. Serap. 1, 24: PG 26, 585 and 588.
30 Jn 15:5.
31 Jn 15:12.
32 Jn 15:5.