Our Spiritual Wedding Garment

By Fr. Jerry Pokorsky ( bio - articles - email ) | Oct 12, 2026

In the parable of the wedding feast, we read:

When the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment; and he said to him, “Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?” And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, “Bind him hand and foot, and cast him into the outer darkness; there men will weep and gnash their teeth.” For many are called, but few are chosen. (Matthew 22:11–14)

The wedding garment in God’s presence is a metaphor for sanctifying grace and the perils of losing it.

Sanctifying grace is God’s own life given to us through the Holy Spirit to heal us of sin and make us holy (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church 1999–2000). Sanctifying grace is the light of Christ within us. God always loves us, but sanctifying grace makes us participants in His divine life and adopted children, pleasing to Him in a new way. Transformed by grace, our lives become fruitful in His eyes, and our good works can merit an increase of grace and eternal life through Christ (cf. CCC 2008–2011).

God infuses our souls with sanctifying grace through the Sacraments, beginning with Baptism. We renounce Satan, profess our faith in Christ, and are baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. The Eucharist nourishes our life of grace, while Confirmation brings a special outpouring of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. Through the Sacrament of Penance, God restores sanctifying grace to souls that have lost it through mortal sin.

Venial sin weakens our charity and wounds our relationship with God. Mortal sin deprives us of sanctifying grace and severs our relationship with Him. But the Good Shepherd never abandons the sinner. Through His actual graces, He calls us to repentance and seeks to bring us back into the fold.

Catholics believe the Catholic Church is the one, true Church founded by Christ. Why would anyone profess a religion without believing it to be true? Yet Catholics cannot rest on their sacramental laurels. The path to heavenly glory is fraught with dangers: Original Sin, the allurements of a sinful world, and our own sins, venial and mortal. We must continually cooperate with God's grace, repent of our sins, and persevere in faith.

In general, the Church respects religious convictions and personal freedom. Other religions, though lacking the fullness of truth entrusted to the Catholic Church, may reflect humanity’s sincere search for God and contain elements of truth and goodness. The first three Commandments teach us to love and worship God, establishing the foundation for loving our neighbor. Catholics honor non-Catholics who sincerely seek God and strive to follow the truth as they understand it.

Nevertheless, the Church rejects abandoning the Catholic faith. As Hilaire Belloc once observed, the rejection of the faith by Catholics bears the mark of the diabolical. Even so, Catholics cannot presume their own salvation. Mortal sin deprives us of sanctifying grace when it involves grave matter, full knowledge, and deliberate consent.

Some of the megachurches in evangelical Protestantism have become destinations for former Catholics. Some of these Catholics received inadequate formation in the faith. Others, including some who have divorced and remarried, have struggled with Church teaching and sought a new religious home to reconcile their faith with their circumstances at variance with Catholic teaching.

The following doctrines are found in some evangelical Protestant churches. They reflect, to varying degrees, the legacy of Martin Luther and the 16th-century Protestant Revolt.

• God reveals Himself through Scripture alone, the principle known as sola scriptura. The Church is primarily a community of believers, with the pastor serving as a teacher and interpreter of the Bible.
• When we believe in Jesus as Lord and Savior, we are “saved.” In some evangelical traditions, the believer’s salvation is eternally secure: once genuinely “saved,” a person cannot ultimately forfeit salvation through the commission of sins. The doctrine is dangerous because it can redirect our focus toward a single event and grand schemes of human history rather than the daily examination of our spiritual lives.

By contrast, the Catholic Church teaches that mortal sin can deprive the soul of sanctifying grace and that salvation requires perseverance in faith and charity. Catholic teaching calls for humble self-awareness, including an honest acknowledgment and careful articulation of our sins in a good Confession. Nothing in this life quite compares with the context and structure of the Sacrament of Penance. The Church provides an infallible standard of faith and morals, but human weakness makes continual conversion necessary.

As Catholics, we must believe the battle for our souls continues until we draw our last breath. Traditional spiritual exercises confront us with the possibility of damnation for unrepented sins of commission, omission, and culpable cooperation in evil.

We need not become scrupulous, but we must remain vigilant and safeguard sanctifying grace. A familiar story about Pope John XXIII recounts that, after examining his conscience and expressing sorrow for his sins at the end of the day, he would pray, “Lord, it’s Your Church. I’m going to bed.”

Good advice.