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Roman Catechism
Man’s Weakness In Fulfilling God’s Will
It also compares us to sick persons who, as long as their malady lasts, are incapable of fulfilling the duties and offices proper to persons of sound and vigorous health. In the same way neither can we, without the assistance of divine grace, undertake actions such as are acceptable to God. Even should we, while in this condition, succeed in doing anything good, it will be of little or no avail towards attaining the bliss of heaven. But to love and serve God as we ought is something too noble and too sublime for us to accomplish by human powers in our present lowly and feeble condition, unless we are assisted by the grace of God.
Another very apt comparison to denote the miserable condition of mankind is that wherein we are likened to children who, if left to go their own way, are thoughtlessly attracted by everything that presents itself. Truly we are children, thoughtless children, wholly devoted to vain conversations and frivolous actions, once we become destitute of divine assistance; and hence the reproof which divine wisdom directs against us: O children, how long will you love childishness, and fools covet those things which are hurtful to themselves? while the Apostle thus exhorts us: Do not become children in sense.
Not only this, but our folly and blindness are even greater than those of children; for they are merely destitute of human prudence which they can of themselves acquire in course of time; whereas, if not assisted by God’s help and grace, we can never aspire to that divine prudence which is so necessary to salvation. And if God’s assistance should fail us, we at once cast aside those things that are truly good and rush headlong to voluntary ruin.