Sin: an offer of grace?

"When God permits a sin, though it be that of Judas, there is in the very permitting of it an offer of grace which can be so great as to force us to cry: O felix culpa! With the aid of this grace humility can replace despair and lead one again to life.

When God permits that continual falling into infidelities from which a weak will does not know how to defend itself, His permission is at the same time the gesture of grace with which He lifts us up to brace ourselves in His arms, which have the strength of omnipotence and the tenderness of mercy.

When the consciousness of our weakness and anxious foreboding sow suffering in the heart, is not our Lord offering us the grace of His bosom as a sure refuge and of his Providence as a guarantee of His protection?

There is, then, no reason to despair. Even that which, in the light of Providence seems a shadow, such as sin and evil, is definitely an occasion of grace for the one who knows how to accept it and to place his trust in faithful abandonment by hope.

From this perspective - which is that of Saint Theresa of the Child Jesus - the practice of abandonment is not only a general confidence in the future goodness and mercy of our Lord, but also, and above all, the expression of unshakable certitude in the continual and actual offering of graces like droplets bedewing all the things of life.

This certitude is what gives to abandonment the lilt of serenity and joy, far different from the clamor of desires."

-- Everything as a Grace by Fr Anastasius of the Holy Rosary, ocd