Fr. Joachim recently opened my eyes to an important truth about Grace. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 1999, states that “Grace is a favor, the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of God.” There are several ways in which the Church speaks about grace, but what Father illuminated for me was the importance of recognizing and cooperating with the particular graces through which the Holy Spirit prompts us to act. This resembles what the Gospel Evangelists refer to as Kairos – a decisive or opportune moment within ordinary chronos in which God’s action or invitation becomes discernible (cf. Mark 1:15; Luke 19:44; John 1:14-18).
We live every day in chronos: ordinary chronological time. We wake up, go to work, attend school, care for our families, go shopping, pray, eat, sleep, and repeat the cycle. But within this ordinary flow of time, there can be moments that suddenly acquire a deeper significance. Something happens – or something stirs within us – and we sense that this particular moment is asking something of us. This is where kairos becomes important.
As parishioners of Saint Lawrence-Sacred Heart, where we are focused on making disciples and bringing other people into a personal relationship with Jesus, we must become very aware that God is anxious to give us this form of grace. I hear many people say that they are not comfortable talking about their Catholic faith with others. They are often afraid of criticism or being asked questions they can’t answer. You may have gotten the nudge to knock on a newly bereaved neighbor’s door and invite the widow to our bereavement program but then talked yourself out of it. You may be inspired to invite your adult son and his wife to get their marriage convalidated in the Catholic Church, but you remain silent.
When we trust in God and take the unknown and seemingly risky step to respond to his invitations, we will not only be filled with the grace we need to manage them well; receive the joy and peace of knowing we made a difference but also be blessed with other graces that we cannot even now imagine or know to desire!
Escritura: Read 2 Corinthians 1:6-8. What stands out?
Llamamiento a la acción: Be open to your interior nudgings/ promptings of the Holy Spirit and respond in trust to his invitations and adventures.
