god-s-grace

Sacraments are like hoses. They are the channels of the living water of God's grace. Our faith is like opening the faucet. We can open it a lot, a little, or not at all.

There are many things evil people can take from you. However, they can never steal your ability to laugh and laugh loud.

To the degree that God gives us the grace to see Him, our lives and our ministries will become fruitful and effective.

Such arguments remind me of a scene from Woody Allen's movie Manhattan, where a group of people is talking about sex at a cocktail party and one woman says that her doctor told her she had been having the wrong kind of orgasm. Woody Allen's character responds by saying, __id you have the wrong kind? Really? I've never had the wrong kind. Never, ever. My worst one was right on the money._ Grace works the same way. It is what it is and it's always right on the money. You can call it what you like, categorize it, vivisect it, qualify, quantify, or dismiss it, and none of it will make grace anything other than precisely what grace is: audacious, unwarranted, and unlimited.

Why grace? Because some days, it's the only thing we have in common. Because it's the one thing I'm certain is real. Because it's the reason I'm here. Because it's the oxygen of religious life, or so says a musician friend of mine, who tells me, __ithout it, religion will surely suffocate you._ Because so many of us are gasping for air and grasping for God, but fleeing from a kind of religious experience that has little to do with anything sacred or gracious.

This is where Jean's stubbornness and, perhaps, God's stubborn grace came into play. __y definition of grace would be multifaceted, but part of it would certainly be God's passion for brokenness. He does, he really does love brokenness,_ Jean told me. __race doesn't obsess with ourselves. It obsesses with people and with brokenness. This is a hard place to live, but God is bigger than hard places to live.

Everyone experiences grace, even if they don't realize it. It's kind of like Moby's music. You could ask your average sixty-something-year-old retired banker in Connecticut if he's ever heard of Moby and/or his music and the response you'd receive more than likely would be a resounding, __o__hat's a Moby?_ But if you say, __emember that American Express commercial where Tiger Woods is putting around New York City? Remember the song playing? That was Moby._ __h, then, OK. I guess I have heard Moby,_ our theoretical retired banker in New Canaan might say. __o _ what exactly is a Moby?_ That's like grace. Not that grace is a pretentious vegan techno-rocker, but you get the idea. Grace is everywhere, all around us, all of the time. We only need the ears to hear it and the eyes to see it.

Grace to me is a little bit of extra help when you're feeling stuck or doomed or, probably, hopefully, out of good ideas on how to save yourself, and how to salvage the situation or the friendship or the whatever it is,_ Anne Lamott once told me. __ wish it was accompanied by harp music so you could know that's what was happening, but for me it's that extra pause or that extra breath or that extra minute's patience against all odds._ On that first trip to Ireland, grace__he kick-in-the-pants, clarifying, cosmic-pause-button kind of grace__idn't just have a harp. It had an entire soundtrack...

When Annunziata said she loved me or any of her thousands of other friends and beloveds, she was really saying, at least in my mind, __od loves you._ To quote the singer/songwriter James Taylor, she showered the people she loved with love, always showing the way that she felt without holding back. Even as her body could barely contain her soul any longer, she'd open wide the gates of herself with a smile, that giggle, her twinkling eyes, and she'd let the supernatural love flow through her. Walking out of the chapel after her funeral, a woman I'd never seen before stopped me and said, __ou're Cathleen, aren't you?_ __es,_ I croaked, tears rolling off my nose as I fingered the prayer card with Annunziata's picture on it. Slipping an arm around my shoulders, the woman explained that she was one of Annunziata's former students and said, __he loved you so much._ I know.

Experiencing something of the grace of God should always cause our self-perceived ideas about 'Who He is' and 'How He works' to pop.

Look closely for the fingerprints of God's faithfulness throughout the seasons of your life.

You can never escape God's Grace because as you run from it, you run to it.

We should get jerseys, cause we make a good team; but yours would look better than mine, cause you're outta my league.

Hang on! God will strength in any act of your pursuit.

The Lord will never forsake you. His presence is always with you everywhere you may go.

The Lord is a great God.The Lord is a great King.

My nun, which is how I think of her, was the most profound witness for God's love I've ever encountered in this world. She was a magnet for lost souls, a petite fortress of strength and unconditional love. What this sprightly, silly, lovely woman did from the obscurity of a faded convent in Rust Belt Chicago was to fulfill in a passionate, tireless way the supreme commandment of Jesus' gospel every day of her life.

Why settle for a lesser vision? When you are destiny for greatness!