It's all grace!

When I was growing up I spent lots of weekends with my grandmother. She would take me to Church and I was so struck with the way she prayed. She was a woman of great faith. And she needed it. She had 12 children and lots of challenges in her life.

Today I meet so many people who struggle with their faith. I think it is because we live in a period in history where there is so much uncertainty and so much fear. It is hard to exercise our faith when so many horrific things are happening around us. We say to ourselves: “Where is God in all of this?”

Well, God is there in all of this. He does not sit in Heaven looking down at the events playing themselves out before Him. Remember the Incarnation? Jesus came into the world as one of us and right now He is here in the midst of us – right beside us as we go through illness, through uncertainty, as we try to make important decisions, as we struggle with our fears.

In the First Reading for the Liturgy today, St. Paul tells the Romans and us: “Abraham never questioned or doubted God’s promise, rather, he was strengthened in faith and gave glory to God, fully persuaded that God could do whatever he had promised. Thus his faith was credited to him as justice.” (Rom. 4:20-25)

Faith is all grace. When we were baptized Faith, along with Hope and Charity, was infused into our soul. We have the gift of faith already so it is a matter of exercising it, using it, calling on it in the midst of the difficulties in life.

God loves us. God IS love! He can’t do anything else but love. There is no need to fear Someone who loves us. One of the reasons we have a hard time believing and trusting is because we don’t really know God well. The more we get to know Who He really is and what He is really like the more we can trust Him. . We can trust God – with our very lives!