As you probably know, O Faithful Bloggerland Reader, I have been on a Thomas Merton kick for a while. With the sermon coming up on Sunday so steeped in the language of grace, Merton almost knocked me down with the following words:
"What I need most of all is the grace to really accept God as He gives Himself to me in every situation. 'He came unto His own and His own received Him not.'
"Good Shepherd, You have a wild and crazy sheep in love with thorns and brambles. But please don't get tired of looking for me! I know You won't. For You have found me. All I have to do is stay found."
Stay found.
Maybe one of the problems we have with grace lies not in our belief or doubt, but in our willingness to accept it as a gift from God. We live in a culture where there is no such thing as a gift freely received. We feel pressure to give gifts in response when someone gives us something nice, whether great or small. But when it comes to the grace of God, nothing we give back can compare. And while it is something we need to constantly "re-gift" to others (and even to ourselves), all that we can give back to God in response is a life of gratitude that joins him in the mission of Christ to proclaim an offer of redemption to the ends of the earth. And in the meantime, to proclaim it in such a way that we can hear it for ourselves.
Merton also wrote,
"I have got to be faithful, detached, obedient, concerned not only for my own life as I want to live it, but for God's will, which remains to be realized in and through me. That is all."
That is all.
