Christ's religion is far more than an excellent philosophy. Philosophy aims only at the excellence of nature. The ethics of Jesus are essentially supernatural. His teaching is not a code but a life. It will, in consequence, happen fairly frequently that faith will dictate something which reason cannot, indeed, condemn, but to which it will feel no obligation to aspire. The moral value of the acts of Christ's members is strictly valued by the measure of the supernatural that is in them. Their acts, to come up to the requirements of the Divine Master, must be reasonable, but more than just reasonable. They must be "faith-full," or using an adjective that served in another connection, they must be "grace-full." For the faith in them must be "informed" by love of God. It is the principle in which they take their rise that determines the moral character of our acts. They are supernatural, only if they have their rise in faith; merely human, if they are dictated by reason only, and merely animal if they come from sensibility uncontrolled by reason.
- Fr. Edward Leen, The True Vine and its Branches, pp. 137-138
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