I receive many of my thoughts and ideas for my articles from the reflections booklets I read each day. A reflection that has taken my interest was called “Guided with Grace.” In the story a mother reflects on how her son as given extra time to finish an exam. In so doing, he then received 100 percent for his work. He commented that it was by grace that he was able to achieve this.
His comment begs the question, ‘What do we mean by grace?’ I think his understanding of grace would be the same as most of us. The teacher gave the boy extra time that he was not entitled to have. It was something freely given for his advantage and he used it well.
Christian understanding would be that grace is freely given to us by God. We can only pray and ask God for the grace in our lives. We often ask for grace for a particular need or reason. I suppose one of the sad things is, that people, Christians as well, either don’t understand or don’t ask for grace. Anyone who is aware of grace and its power and influence in our lives would feel incomplete or lacking because of not being able to access the gift from God.
In some way it is inconceivable that we receive this gift from God when we are so imperfect ourselves?
That in our brokenness and sin something called grace will come into our lives to help us to be better, to overcome a problem give us the strength to move on and so on.
Grace is God’s power given to us to live in our weakness. To contemplate this thought is extraordinary.
It is all very well to talk about it but it is important to reflect on the scriptures to see where these references are made. If we look at Rom 5:20 we read, ‘When law came, it was to multiply the opportunities of falling but however great the number of sins committed, grace was even greater; and so, just as sin reigned where ever there was death, so grace will reign to bring eternal life…’
I found this an amazing quote because law will always challenge us and we will fail, the quote continued that law multiples the opportunities of falling! But grace will reign. If I may share another quote from Eph 2:8, “Because it is by grace that you have been saved, through faith; not by anything of your own, but by a gift from God, …”
Paul and Barnabas had great faith in grace and obviously a good understanding of it. In Acts 11:23 Barnabas takes comfort in the faith that is growing in Antioch, he says he could see that the grace of God was evident, so he was satisfied.
The word grace is used so many times in the scriptures that maybe we lose a little of what the word means. The reality is we all need God’s grace to function especially as a committed Christian. We all have limitations so we can only overcome with the grace of God working in us. If there is no grace then we are operating on our own.
Paul in Romans 6:14 says we must hand ourselves over to God and then sin will no longer dominate our lives, since we are living by grace and not by law. It is quite revealing to be conscious of the number of times that the word grace is used in the scriptures and most notably by Paul.
We say all the time …. ‘Hail Mary full of grace…’ but do we reflect on the impact of God’s grace in Mary’s life? She was a remarkable woman who did amazing things for God she certainly was – full of grace.
When we define some sort of definition of grace we see its greatness in gift
The Grace of God: So grace is favour ‘unmerited favour’ Grace is, therefore, God’s unmerited favour – His goodness towards those who have no claim on, or reason to expect, divine favour. The principal manifestation of God’s grace has been in the form of a gift.
I leave you to ponder this thought:
A gift freely given by God that we have no right or claim to and it is God’s own power that resides and works in and through us as we are instruments of God.
Fr Michael Morley
Parish Priest
Sacred Heart Parish
13 February 2019
