apriori_2009 September

In the months before Father Robert left for his assignment in Union City we occasionally had the opportunity to go on long walks together. Sometimes we caught up on each others lives and families, sometimes we would silently enjoy the peacefulness and beauty of our surroundings and sometimes we would discuss spiritual things. It was these moments I treasured most because without fail I would come away from them with a richer spiritual life and deeper understanding of my faith. During one of these walks I told him about a prayer I would say after Holy Communion thanking God for the Graces He had given me by receiving the Sacred Body and Precious Blood of His Son. What I learned from Father that day is that grace doesn’t come from performing individual acts. We have the Grace of God from the moment we are born.

The individual acts, the way we live our lives, is what determines the benefit we receive from the grace we have been given. Align yourself with the will of God and the grace of God will bring you peace. As we stray from our relationship with Him, the more we fight His will, the more the benefit from our inherent graces decrease and the more materialistic we become. This is why we see people that have many possessions yet are unhappy and in this economic downturn why those same people, as they lose those possessions, become even unhappier.

Do we have to live the life of a saint to avail ourselves of the Grace God has given us? No, but we can strive to develop some saintly virtues within our own lives:

Prayer. Everything begins with prayer. Being faithful in prayer allows God’s grace to well up within us and flow forth.

Love. Act charitably. Be kind and helpful to all you encounter, not in a haughty or superior way, but humbly allowing the grace of God to flow in your selfless love.

While we work to develop these virtues in our lives we can take comfort in the knowledge that the one thing we all have in common with the saints is that we are human yet were graced by the Divine the moment we were conceived and given the gift of the Holy Spirit at baptism. As Knights of Columbus these are our precious treasures which we must preserve and pass on to our family by our thoughts words and actions. VIVAT JESUS!