Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens, as he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before him. In love he destined us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ, in accord with the favor of his will, for the praise of the glory of his grace that he granted us in the beloved.
Ephesians 1:3-6
After reading again this powerful statement by St. Paul, I Googled: “how old is the world?” The agreed upon answer seems to be 4.54 billion years, give or take half a billion years…
After we catch our breath, we can dwell on the thought that 4.54 billion years ago, the Creator God, our Heavenly Father, was thinking of all people, including the prophet Amos, the first twelve apostles, St. Paul, every single person to whom they would have announced the good news, and every one of us!
Over the centuries, the Lord has changed his ways of announcing the good news, but the intensity of his thought in choosing us in his Son Jesus and the detailed care he applies in reaching our mind and heart, speak volumes about the inescapable fact that all is grace.
Comparing our tiny, little self to the immensity and the unfathomable age of the universe, we are way beyond insignificance!
Hence, only God’s insane love for us can justify his decision to choose us. That is grace to the max! Speaking of grace, we shall see it operative in St. Paul’s life because, in his “relative greatness,” he is less insignificant. Looking back into the murky years of his early life, St. Paul could see and appreciate fully God’s patience in allowing him to wander from the right path, to persecute Christians, to try to uproot from their hearts the very gift of faith. He could see God’s grace operative as he was knocked to the ground on the way to Damascus. It is grace clearly operative in the knowledge of Scriptures that he wanted to use to combat the New Way (Christianity) which, instead, he wound up using to explain Christian doctrine in a cohesive, consistent, harmonious fashion.
Perhaps the most dramatic realization that, today, St. Paul wants to share with us about the relentless work of grace in all of us is the contrast between his flaws, weaknesses and human frailty on the one side and the awesome power of God’s grace on the other. As far as God’s grace operative in us is concerned, we must begin to wonder about how many times we failed to decipher messages from God or, worse yet, we deliberately stopped our ears and shut our hearts to it.
It is possible to be immersed in grace in church, at home, at work, everywhere and still be shut to it, because of a decision, perhaps made long ago, to be open only to whatever message fits our preferences.
Salvation history has painfully proven that some people, although chosen by God, did develop ways of screening, of blocking an array of unwanted messages and allowed through only whatever they wanted.
A tragic case on the Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time is found in the 1st reading (Amos 7:12-15). Amaziah was the most influential priest in the Northern Kingdom of Israel. In his arrogance and self-sufficiency, he blocked God’s grace about to reach him through the prophesizing of Amos. Amaziah could not let grace upset the comfortable status quo he had created for himself.
It would be equally tragic if, regardless of how often we come to church and of what image of piety we might project to people around us, we neglect to determine if, somehow, we are keeping grace from transforming us. Whenever we find ourselves stagnant and stunted in our spiritual life, which is the same as to say that we are deprived of genuine happiness, we must read again that passage from Ephesians (1:3-14) and convince ourselves that, far from being below insignificance, we are constantly thought of by the Father because we are as precious to him as the Blood of his only Son Jesus.
Here, then, is a little guideline to help us along as we decide to welcome wholeheartedly the work of grace. Awareness of grace working in us takes the basic form of an instinctive and humble recognition of the absolute gratuitousness of God’s intervention in human history and in our life. This awareness generates in our hearts sweet, reassuring comfort along with the desire to begin to trust the Lord more and more. Such desire, then, paves the way to recollection of the marvelous deeds of the Lord in history and in our individual world. This recollection, in turn, opens the door of the heart to humble acceptance of our human frailty, followed by sincere owning up to our sins and the joyous embracing of his forgiveness.
As this pattern is reinforced by docile listening to God’s Word and by devout reception of the Sacraments, our soul becomes familiar with God’s modus operandi, i.e. with how he favors simplicity, humble things and lowly people to let his majesty and power shine through in clear contrast. As a pleasant consequence of familiarity with God’s modus operandi, we become blessed with a generous flow of insights that make us more confident, more trusting, more serene.
Therefore, our way of remaining in contact with our Heavenly Father which, of course, is all a gift of grace, would turn our whole life into prayer, like this prayer:
Grant, o Lord, to assist with your grace those requests which you inspire us to make because you have already anticipated them in your love, in view of our everlasting happiness. Amen.
My dear friends in Christ, from now on, how can we possibly rely on anything else but God’s grace?
