Amazing what?

Grace.

I'll be honest. For most of my life, I had no idea what grace was. I don't even really remember talking about it growing up. Maybe I remember a little from high school. But I definitely couldn't have told you what it was. I know that this sounds all-too-familiar for cradle Catholics who grew up not really knowing or authentically practicing their faith. It's no wonder why I thought I didn't need to confess my sins, or pray, or feel the need for the Sacraments, especially the Eucharist. "For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, inhuman, implacable, slanderers, profligates, fierce, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding the form of religion but denying the power of it." (2 Timothy 3:2-5)

That segment of the verse describes my upbringing! Yep, I went to Mass sometimes, made the Sign of the Cross, did the sit/stand/kneel and went through the motions, had a cross in my bedroom, prayed when things got tough, but in almost everything I did, I just held onto the form of Catholicism, but denied the power of it. That power, being grace. 

Sometimes the grace got through all the walls I built up. I can only imagine how many times in my life I said something like, "I have no idea how I made it through that," or "I didn't think I could do it." I'm not talking about rather superficial things like finishing an exam or fixing something, but times of suffering and enduring. Times where I was so sad I thought I could drown in my sorrows; grace got me through. The times where it seemed like every door was closing on me and my life was crumbling in; grace got me through. The times I was frozen in fear; grace got me through. No matter how many times I tried to shut God out of my life, He still loves me more than I can fathom and as a loving Father, He still reaches out to me in any ways that He can.

But for much of my life, I lived without sanctifying or saving grace offered by Christ through His Bride, the Church. Thanks be to God, He gave me more time in my life to turn things around and return to a state of grace. I did, though, cut myself off of this saving grace through my sins. My own choices. I refused the graces, or help, that God was offering me to overcome my temptations, and I fell. Have you ever known someone with bad habits or lifestyles and you wished they would change? Have you ever pleaded with someone to not light that cigarette, or not have another drink? How upset and disappointed were you when they smoked again or drank again? The wounds that we inflict upon His Sacred Heart by our sins are nothing compared to the disappointment we feel in our loved ones.This is like God's offer of sanctifying grace to us, followed by our rejection of it, on a small scale.  Because He has the greatest capacity to love, He also has the greatest capacity to be hurt when we reject His saving help.

Once I began to have a knowledge and awareness of grace, the more I saw it in my life. It's literally everywhere. Constant. Like the air around me... all I have to do is breathe. But I need extra help to heed Jesus' call to "be perfect, just as your Heavenly Father is perfect" (Matt 5:48). My heart swells with gratitude for the Church and her Sacraments, which are visible signs of invisible graces. The most important and life-altering thing I did in my "re-version" was to go to the Sacrament of Reconciliation. By confessing my sins in the confessional, I acknowledged all the times that I sinned, refused God's grace, and damaged my relationship with Him and His Body, the Church. I confessed bad habits and unholy tendencies I had, and through the Sacrament, received the graces to overcome most of them--to this I can attest! The confessional was like a gate to the greatest source of graces: the Eucharist. The Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of our Lord, Himself! Being in a state of grace, I could receive the Eucharist worthily. Remember what St. Paul says:

For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over, took bread, and, after he had given thanks, broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.

Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord. A person should examine himself, and so eat the bread and drink the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many among you are ill and infirm, and a considerable number are dying. (1 Corinthians 11:23-30)

The graces from the Eucharist are transforming my life all the time because I try hard to be open to them. Jesus told St. Faustina, "When I come to a human heart in Holy Communion, My hands are full of all kinds of graces which I want to give to the soul. But souls do not even pay attention to Me; they leave Me to Myself and busy themselves with other things. ... They treat Me as a dead object" (Diary of St. Faustina, 1385).

Reading that passage during my "re-version" process really made me stop and think, "What is grace?" and, "Is the Eucharist even important in my life?" My journey really took off from those questions, and now He is changing my life from the answers I sought. I pray for other cradle Catholics with similar experiences as mine, who can say, "I don't know what grace is," or, "I don't make it to Mass every week," which means, "I don't know what the Eucharist is." The Church offers every bit of help that we could possibly need to know, love, and serve Him and become the perfected lovers that we are called to be! Turn to her! I will be praying for you. Please pray for me too.

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