June 30, 2010

From My Confessor

Short and sweet today:

"Avail yourself of the grace of God as you strive for a higher degree of Christian perfection."

What else is there to say? It's the simplest thing, but it can be very difficult. Grace is there for us; the sense that grace has to be squeezed out of a stingy God is an optical illusion of the spirit, deriving from the confusion and distraction of our minds. Grace is there for the taking, or better, is there trying to make a home in us in God's passion to relieve us of the burden of our misery, our self-absorption, and the dullness and frustration of our sins.

It is God's delight to replace the boredom and sadness of sin with a flourishing and creative holiness; all we have to do is consent and surrender. This is the whole of the spiritual life; simple, and yet a long and treacherous journey.

It reminds me of one of my favorite sayings from one of my teachers: "Grace is free, but it's not cheap."
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1 comment:

  1. A Bit of the Blarney9:41 PM

    I like the last quote! It really is true and food for reflection...Thank you! Cathy

    ReplyDelete

Faithful, or even just thoughtful criticisms are always welcome. Uninformed rudeness to other posters or to the Lord and His Church is not.

I also reserve the right to reject comments promoting things like private revelations and fringe points of view, if it seems to me like they are being presented in a misleading way.

If you raise a disagreement with something I say but I do not respond, please do not feel slighted or insulted, or imagine that this automatically means I disagree or agree with you. It's just that I don't find the comment box to be a constructive medium for certain forms of debate.