Thursday, September
15, 2016
Memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows
from the first reading of the
Mass of the day:
By the grace of God I am what I am, and his
grace to me has not been ineffective. (1 Co 15:10)
If we do anything good in the
world, if our work or even our way of being has in any way helped bring the
good things of the Lord to another person in need, if our station in life has
changed—that is, if we have been rescued from the grip of darkness and set down
in the realm of light, or if we have been gifted such as Paul was, to do work
that we never ever merited to be able to do, or, perhaps even if our state in
life has declined due to age or any other circumstance, and we are no longer
able to do what we once did, then we are able to make this statement with Paul.
Remember that Paul was a
terrible sinner, a persecutor of the infant church of the Lord, and yet
literally like a thunderbolt the Lord entered his life and rearranged it to
suit His purposes, and so that is true for many of us in many different ways.
This was the work of grace which, we must remember, is a unmerited and
free gift bestowed by God for reasons that sometimes never become readily
apparent to us.
Perhaps that work of grace is
evident in your life as well—and don’t forget that this grace effects a
profound change in us, and we find ourselves doing things that we never
could have predicted we would be doing just a short while ago. But even if our
life trajectory causes us to “fall up,” to borrow the title of a book by
Richard Rohr, that does not mean that God is giving up on us or is no longer
interested in working through us to reach others.
“and he grace to me has not been
ineffective”
This statement assumes one
thing: that we cooperate with the grace that is given to us. Paul says
that because of this grace he works harder than all; what does it mean in our
lives to say that we actively take a part in the gift of grace through our own
cooperation, participation, sacrifices and hard work or whatever else it may
be?
Hail Mary, full of grace: the
grace that was given to Our Blessed Mother was a grace that brought her through
a period of terrible darkness and loss. As Simeon had predicted, a sword was to
pierce her heart. One commentator on the Gospel story of the crucifixion
reflects that when Jesus said to her, “woman, behold your son,” (referring to
St. John) that too was a crucifixion for her as her divine Son was to be taken
from her and in His place she would be given someone merely human. Another
commentator has noted that we all stand in the place of Saint John, and that
through this work of the Lord, Mary became the mother of us all, a mother full
of compassion because she is a mother who has suffered so much in her life of
grace.
To say that grace is a gift is not
to say that grace brings us blessings and happiness all the days of our lives.
Like Mary, we too may be brought through periods of loss and darkness and
suffering so that we can emerge from it all larger than what we were before and
more capable of becoming blessings for others.
If your grace is bringing you through
a difficult time, especially, look to the Mother of us all and ask her to bring
you a greater awareness of whatever may be going on in your life.
“Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray
for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.”
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