INSTRUMENTS OF GRACE ^_[1]

"HOLY EXCHANGE" 

1.  The most sublime prayer in all Christendom comprises one sentence:  "God, be merciful to me, a sinner!"  [Lk 18:13]  This is the prayer of piety, the prayer of one who offers to God the gift of submission, sorrow for sins, and reverent homage. Ideally, gift-giving symbolizes some aspect of a meaningful relationship shared between unselfish persons. The exchange of gifts defines the Catholic liturgy. God opens his hand and from his abundant gifts, he chooses bread and wine by which man may receive his "food in due season".  [Psa 145:15]  As a sign of its obedience to God, the community of faith presents bread and wine to God in the act of devout worship. These elements, symbolizing nourishment and hospitality, become the sacrament of mercy and eternal life for all who believe:  "Lord, accept our sacrifice as a holy exchange of gifts. By offering what you have given us may we receive the gift of yourself."^[2]  Christ, the "high priest of the good things that have come"  [Heb 9:11], unites the gifts of bread and wine to his once for all  [cf. Heb 10:10]  sacrificial offering on the cross. Obedient to the Father's will, the Logos  (Gk. word; Christ)  goes forth to give "bread to the eater"  [Isa 55:10]  and does not return to the Father until all are fed. The Spirit, who raised Jesus from the dead, changes the offertory gifts into true food and true drink.  [cf. Jn 6:55]  Piety incarnates the Christian belief that the sacrifice of the Mass enables one to receive Our Lord's Body and Blood as a pledge of eternal life. Piety is both spiritual disposition and observable behavior. The Christian's practice of the Real Presence--the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of our Lord Jesus--reveals the extent to which he centers his spiritual life on the Eucharist, how deeply he trusts God, and how earnestly he desires God's love to the full. Care must be taken, however, that reason guides one's devotional practices and not the reverse.

SACRIFICIAL WAY

2.  The sincere devotional life enjoys, as its chaperone, the virtue of humility. One's practice of piety must humbly submit to his intellect and will--properly formed in the mind of Christ  [cf. 1Cor 2:16]  and within the household of God.  [cf. 1Tim 3:15]  Pious practices should be reasonably simple. Docility to the Spirit of God constrains the devoted believer from presumption, from throwing off the hand of God upon his shoulder, from falling into nihility:  "My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."  [Is 55:8-9]  Although no creature ever has comprehended the mind of God, all creation has known the Logos from the beginning. God's word goes forth in divine self-communication: it is the word of creation, of love, of truth, of justice, of invitation, which shall not return to him without having accomplished the mission for which it was sent.  [cf. Isa 55:10-11]  The Word-with-God became the Word-made-flesh to reconcile the Kingdom of God to the battered world which "waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God".  [Rom 8:19]  God's word calls us to a sacrificial way of life. The sacrificial way is our vocation. Ours is not a vocation to religiosity, but rather a call to active participation with Our Lord in the fulfillment of his divine mission. The people of God are leaven by which souls are raised to Christ.  [cf. Mt 13:33]  The people of God care for the souls who choose for Christ. They provide an opportunity by which disaffected, fearful, and hate-filled persons can be relieved of their overwhelming burdens. They offer a sacrifice of mercy for those in need of spiritual healing.

LIFE CHANGED FOREVER 

3.  Assuredly, Our Lord does not intend his followers to be trampled on the world's footpath, broken on the rocks, or impaled by thorns of evil. To the contrary, sacrifice for the sake of God's Kingdom preserves ones life to eternity.  [cf. Jn 12:25]  Yet, when God's children suffer the sin of this world, they are not to regret the fact that patient endurance depends on hope: "...now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen".  [Heb 11:1]  Mercy is a sacrifice to hope. On December 19th, 1993, a mother lay on the living room floor of her home in Pearland, Texas, next to her younger son. A trio of home invaders ordered them to lie face down as they ransacked the family home. Upon raising her head to calm her son's fear, one of the attackers pulled the trigger of a shotgun and blew away the right side of the mothers face. After 20 surgeries, she says, "I'm real embarrassed now. I feel like a monster...You get stared at, you get laughed at."^[3] Her assailant, who now will spend the rest of his life in prison for this and other crimes, denies that he shot her. The mother's name is Stephanie Palmer. On November 09th, 1994, at Froedtert Medical Center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the medical staff attempted to comfort a boy suffering from burns over 90 per cent of his body. He was the last of six children to die  (the youngest, six weeks old), the other five having perished quickly in a fiery holocaust on Wisconsin's Interstate 94. The accident occurred when a large metal bracket bounded off a truck, piercing the gas tank on the family's minivan. Scorched and bandaged, the children's parents spoke after the explosion: "The hardest part of all was visiting Benny in intensive care and knowing he would not make it."^[4] The 29-year-old truck driver, concerned about his negligence and preferring seclusion, absented himself from the family's suffering and anguish. The young boy's name was Ben Willis. For the persons in these two stories, the sieve was shaken [cf. Sir 27:4], and life changed forever, and the change--far from being natural and somehow knowable--was begotten by a storm of random, insensible violence or neglect.

"I FORGIVE YOU"

4.  These good people, through no fault of their own, sank into an abyss of torment and profound loss.^[5] These tragedies compel us to think about ourselves, our families, and especially our children. Consider the responsibility of parenthood. Caught in the tension between a child's growing awareness of the world and his need for protection from it, parents struggle with what to teach or tell their children. How does a mom or dad explain violence to children and the deeper problem of evil which gives rise to it? How does one make little children aware of safety issues, for example, without creating a creeping sense of dread and anxiety about the world and their future? As children of God, as Christians, how much can we handle? How much can a child of God endure? As our wise and loving Father, what does God think? What does he do? Duane and Janet Willis say that their faith will help them to adjust to life after the accident and fire-storm which claimed their six children.  They feel no bitterness or hatred toward the 29-year-old truck driver.  By the authority of Christ, they have denied death its victory and disarmed its stinging power  [cf. 1Cor 15:55]:  "He's scared, but there's not a drop of bad feeling we have toward him. We understand that trials come. If our faith is not tested, then it is empty. We will laugh and smile with tremendous memories of our kids."^[6]   The faith of Stephanie Palmer enabled her to walk calmly to the witness stand to offer her victim-impact statement before a crowded courtroom. Looking at her attacker, she said, "I think there's only one thing left for me to say, and that is I forgive you. After the trial, she said:  "I felt sorry for him. He has a mother. My children are wonderful. They don't treat me any different. They don't see my face at all. My husband tells me how beautiful I am all the time. He knew the real me before this happened.  My initial fear was that my kids might be afraid of me. I didn't know how I was going to go out in the public ever again. But I've overcome that because its really not what's on the outside, its what's on the inside."^[7]  As a reluctant, yet resolute model of faith for Christians of this generation, Stephanie Palmer offers a quiet confession of faith: "Its difficult," she said, "but with the Lord with me, who can be against me?"^[8]  [cf. Rom 8:31] 

HOW DEAR IS CONFIDENCE

5.  When suffering, a Christian sometimes lose his boldness before God.  [cf. Eph 3:11-13]  When bad things happen, he may discover that he is uncertain about others and even of life itself. He grows timid, not knowing what to hold onto or what holds him up.  [cf. Wis 9:13-18]  How dear is confidence to the one who loses it! Confidence is the divinely inspired assurance and conviction of our human faith. When Peter confesses, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God"  [Mt 16:16], Jesus expresses delight with his understanding, and confides to Peter the source of his confidence:  "Blessed are you....For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven."  [Mt 16:17]  Were one to glance over the shoulder of St. Paul, jailed in Rome, awaiting his execution, he would observe that the apostle has written a message of hope and confidence to the Church of Philippi:  "God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Even if I am to be poured as a libation upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. Likewise you also should be glad and rejoice with me."  [Phi 2:13, 17-18]  Were one to stand next to the bed of the mortally ill Therese of the Child Jesus--suffering end-stage tuberculosis at the age of twenty-four--he would discover on her notepad that she had penciled a meditation on confidence:  "It is confidence, and confidence alone that should lead us to Love....I cannot lean on anything, nor can I count on anything I have done to build up my confidence in God.  But the consciousness of my poverty has served as a true light for me. I knew that I had never been able, during my life, to pay any of the debts I owed to God but that I could make of that very knowledge a source of spiritual wealth and power."^[9]

ALWAYS ARRIVING

6.  Regarding man's obvious, physical human needs, even his attachment to life itself, Our Lord says, "Do not be anxious about your life. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well."  [Mt 6:25, 33]  True discipleship means that one accepts no other wealth than to share in the cross of Christ. The notion that God's kingdom is an entitlement, irrespective of one's good-faith participation, is quite outside the revealed truths of salvation. Christ will say to such a one, "Truly, I say to you, I do not know you."  [Mt 25:12]  For the Christian, standing down from the spiritual work of love and sacrifice is unthinkable. Our Lord's pilgrim people^[10] possess "boldness and confidence of access through our faith in him".  [Eph 3:12]  St. Paul and St. Therese, who by all appearances seemed to have forfeited everything, lost nothing:  "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit."  [Jn 12:24]  Thus the possibility of hatred and bitterness dies; instead, the liberated heart bears the harvest of grace and reconciliation. The Lord desires that his example of unshakable trust, in the Father and in the Holy Spirit--the things not seen  [Heb 11:1]--be our very own. The spiritual journey is a lifelong pilgrimage; the gate is narrow; often the way is hard.  [cf. Mt 7:13-14]  We are always in the process of arriving; indeed, it would be quite improper for any human being ever to say about love and sacrifice: I have arrived. Without God, suffering is prolonged, and one ages beyond his years. For those who believe, the infallible truth of the resurrection of the dead--indeed the incorruptibility and immortality of the human body--is prophesied with every merciful act of reconciliation in Jesus' name.

WE DO NOT LOSE HEART

7.  The Willis and Palmer families discovered for themselves that God is not found in a raging fire  [cf. 1Kgs 19:12]  nor in the explosion of a murderous weapon nor in a terrifying maelstrom.  [cf. 1Kgs 19:11]  Clinging to the still small voice  [cf. 1Kgs 19:12]  of hope within their afflicted hearts, they emerged from the abyss of fear and loss. Incredibly, miraculously, they chose to be instruments of Our Lord's grace in the lives of the very ones who caused their suffering. They are grateful to our eternal, unchanging God for the "glory that is to be revealed to us".  [Rom 8:18]  Testifying to the power of great faith "the Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love"  [Psa 103:8], they showed their hearts to be a good treasure  [Lk 6:45]  of God's mercy. Therefore, their labor has not been in vain.  [cf. 1Cor 15:58]  Before the Spirit could be given, salvation had to be won. "Lifted up from the earth"  [Jn 12:32], our Lord Jesus Christ offered himself as the acceptable sacrifice to regain for sinful man the promise of his most vital, life-giving relationship, that is, abiding in the love of the Father:  "Christ was faithful over God's house as a son. And we are his house if we hold fast our confidence, and pride in our hope."  [Heb 3:6]  We submit to the Spirit in obedience and humble devotion that we may overflow with the Father's merciful love and the Son's pleasing grace. God's Word commands us to live the sacrificial way of life with conviction "we share in Christ, if only we hold our confidence firm to the end"  [Heb 3:14], for it will yield a fruitful harvest of thirty times, sixty times, even a hundred times more.  [cf. Mt 13:23]  Therefore, possessing the message of heaven by the mercy of God--"I will draw all men to myself"  [Jn 12:32]--we do not lose heart:  "This voice has come for your sake, not mine."  [Jn 12:30]