by The Face of Grace Project | Aug 26, 2020 | Presence
As a young adult I began hearing people talk about the family of choice—our friends. The notion is that we get to choose our friends and they become our family. The implication is that we don’t get to choose our real families and so we are ‘stuck’ with them. An assumption is that we can cease being part of the birth family when we replace it with enough friends. This, of course, is false. While harm is never God’s will, belonging to our family is His design for our salvation—it is our family of Gift. He also would not place us into circumstances without the grace needed to thrive in holiness.
Faith is the gate through which grace enters. We must personally decide whether to be a grace vessel or a grace blocker. There is no partiality in God. He can only give of Himself 100%. The reason we do not receive the effects of that 100% is in us, not Him. I cannot change the past but I can change me today, asking God that I may truly desire they (and I) bask in His glory in Heaven.
by The Face of Grace Project | Aug 23, 2020 | Presence
Our soul is like the face of a cliff face. Our wounds are the crevices that give the fingertip space to the enemy to hold onto us. And that’s all he needs. Sometimes the smaller crevices run the deepest too. That is why the answer to any distress or conflict, whether spiritual or non-spiritual, is always our relationship with God. The pain of love far surpasses the pain we cling to in our hearts. This letting go, per St. Francis de Sales, is how we become “the instrument of our martyrdom”.
by The Face of Grace Project | Aug 12, 2020 | Presence
Devotional prayers are a beautiful part of Catholic heritage and culture. These provide us the words to express our deepest heart-felt emotions. These can also be a great launch into meditation for building relationship with God. There is risk, however, that the devotions themselves might become the subject of our adoration and not God. In recent history, this was a spiritual illness throughout the Church that unfortunately influenced the later rejection of devotions altogether. Just praying in the name of Him isn’t the same as knowing Him.
by The Face of Grace Project | Aug 9, 2020 | Presence
A Catholic dignitary and Japanese ambassador were in conversation. Referring to the horrors occurring in the world, the ambassador told him it is the fault of the Catholics. The Catholic dignitary inquired as to why, and the Japanese ambassador explained that Jesus’ mother Mary had told us if we prayed, this (WWII and other violence) wouldn’t happen. The Catholic responded pointing out that peace was the responsibility of the whole world, to which the ambassador said “But Mary didn’t come to the Buddhists. She didn’t come to the Hindus. She didn’t come to the Muslims. She didn’t come to the Jews. She came to you Catholics, so you have the responsibility.”
It used to be generally considered that the Catholic church developed moral reasoning for the western world. If we don’t bring it back into society, who will?
by The Face of Grace Project | Aug 5, 2020 | Presence
Reading Matthew’s gospel chapter 15:21-28, we are given to ponder the mother of the possessed daughter. For this Canaanite woman, according to human reasoning she was destined to a miserable eternity. She was not one of ‘them’, not of Shem’s line, the holy ones. She was the lowest of the low. That, however, was the identity laid upon her from birth by humankind.
What identity has the world laid upon me? Am I ready to permit God to show me my real self?
by The Face of Grace Project | Jul 29, 2020 | Presence
One night, as I walked through the parking lot to enter the grocery store, I noticed this young man getting his little girl out of the car. She was about 1 year. Rather than walking into the store, he stood and held her.
And I realized that’s what God is trying to give to us every moment of every day.
