This essay is an attempt to illustrate the idea that the way in which God’s grace works in man is more obvious in a situation of persecution than in one of so-called peace, for in the former the contrast between good and evil, the graced and the graceless, is sharper and therefore easier to see.

St Thomas Aquinas, the great thirteenth century theologian, defines that mysterious entity “grace” as a “share in the Divine nature”. Having read this we recognize that he has said both everything and nothing. In this life we perceive God only as “a dim reflection as in a mirror” (ICor. 13:12) and we can therefore know nothing of his nature, so we cannot catch hold of Grace and say “it is this”, or “it is that”. Granted the impossibility of talking about God, of finding words adequate to discuss his nature, we can nevertheless attempt to understand what happens to a man when he deliberately lays himself open to God’s action.