Thursday, February 14, 2008

Please Pass the Grace

I am working on that revised conversion story, so I am extra mindful of the wonder of certain expressions of grace in my life. One of these is the beauty of how Jesus orchestrates members of His body to make His will and His presence known to me, and through me.

Today as I gathered myself before Mass, two people, as it were, knelt on either side of me, or at least their words rang in my mind. First, Fr. Brian Cavanaugh: "when your heart is ready and open, you will find that God is ready to speak to you from His Word." Then, my dear friend Suzanne: "at Mass I have this expectation of a miracle." So with them, through them, I prayed with great expectation to receive whatever grace God truly desired for me.

The homilist was dear and mildly quirky (in the most elegant of ways) Fr. Giles Dimock, O.P., once a Theology professor of mine. He related a story of having committed to praying the chaplet of Divine Mercy for members of his family who had left the practice of the Faith, and seeing them return. His simple statement: "Prayer works. The Chaplet of Divine Mercy works."

Slowly but surely, the grace God truly desired for me dawned in my soul.

So, Fr. Brian, Suzanne, Fr. Giles, St. Faustina, I will endeavor to pass this grace on, just as I received it.

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