…The Grace of God…
(from a March, 1988 conference)

We need to have a very bright and joyful sense of the supernatural, to be aware by a vivid faith that we are surrounded by the grace of God, and that this supernatural free gift we call  grace is so God-like and so close to God that St. Peter says it makes us sharers in the Divine Nature.  It is something much more real and much more beautiful than any other created reality.  It makes us live in God and God live in us, or put another way, it is the inevitable effect of God’s living in us and we in Him.  We could not truthfully call God “Our Father” if we had not been lifted up to an incredible splendor by sanctifying grace.  We are bathed in it.  We are shining with it.  It is something so uplifting and beautifying that the angels gasp with surprise when they see it in us . . .

To be in the state of grace is such an amazing glory . . . that the description of it as the wearing of a wedding garment, which Jesus uses, is quite inadequate unless we realize what the wedding is that grace has made us take part in.  How little we appreciate the grace of God!  How inadequate is our dull idea as to what being in the state of grace means . . . We are made extremely beautiful in the reality of our soul by the grace of God within us . . . We have an incredible dignity, which comes not from anything we have done or can do, but by the free gift, the grace of God. . .

Grace is such a treasure that we ought always to seek to increase it. . . [God] always gives that increase when we make use under His influence of the channels or means of grace.  These are in the main prayer and the Sacraments and above all Holy mass.  If we realized what assisting at Mass does for us we should have more compassion for people who do not know about it than we have for the starving people in the poorest countries on earth.  But, of course, we can share our blessings with others who do not know of them by offering all that we do as a prayer for others as well as for ourselves. . . We are all members of one another, remarkably closely so as members of the Church, but [really though] more remotely so with all people, our wider family, all of whom should have a share in our prayers.

It is mysterious, and we cannot explain how it is so, but if we are in the state of grace, Jesus lives in us and we live in Him.  His life is ours and ours is His.  Each detail in our living is caught up into His human life and becomes something worthy of the appreciation of God, and God is pleased with it.  It is worthwhile in His sight.  It gives Him pleasure.

Of course, if each moment of our life and what we do at each moment is to be valuable to God by being incorporated into Jesus’ human life, our life and activity have to follow a certain plan and not be chaotic or undirected.  God has a plan for each of us in Christ, and if we ignore His will, even if not to the extent of sin, we do not get the grace-enhanced value out of what we do or experience. . .

In our attempts to live a holy and spiritual life on earth amid the allurements of created things that attract us, there is a quite simple formula by which we should regulate our connection with temporal things.  They can all be blessings, but in one of two ways only.  If they fit in with God’s purpose for us, a purpose that includes our own temporal and eternal welfare, then we should accept and use them with thanksgiving and reasonable enjoyment.  We are then using them in the way God created them to be used.  If, however, they hinder God’s purpose for us personally, if they lead us away from Him, if they become harmful attachments, restricting our spiritual freedom, we must reject them and in doing so receive a blessing.  So all things can help us on our way.  We must, however, not be slaves of anything and must discern those things that help and those that hinder us on the path to God, accepting the one, renouncing the other.                

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