An In-Breaking of Grace

+JMJ+

I received an indescribable experience of grace this morning while sitting before the Blessed Sacrament, after reading a prayer by Teilhard de Chardin:

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.

We are quite naturally impatient in everything

to reach the end without delay.

We should like to skip the intermediate stages.

We are impatient of being on the way to something

unknown, something new.

And yet it is the law of all progress

that it is made by passing through

some stages of instability—

and that it may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you;

your ideas mature gradually—let them grow,

let them shape themselves, without undue haste.

Don’t try to force them on,

as though you could be today what time

(that is to say, grace and circumstances

acting on your own good will)

will make of you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit

gradually forming within you will be.

Give Our Lord the benefit of believing

that his hand is leading you,

and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself

in suspense and incomplete.

I am at a loss for words to adequately express what I saw, but I began to cry, as I suddenly realized how terribly limited I am, how much I still have to learn about God, how weak my faith is, how I am really only at the beginning of my spiritual journey.  And how much I need to be healed--yet I am mute, lacking the voice or the courage or the humility to even cry out to Him as He goes by, "Lord Jesus Christ, heal me!" I see now that I am absolutely desperate to be loved, and that one of the reasons I am here in Concordia is because I am seeking a family, hoping to find the family I need, but do not have.  

 

There were so many tears in my eyes, I realized I couldn't even see the Host in the Monstrance, which seemed somehow poetic and appropriate to the moment--and then, for some reason, I suddenly thought of the picture of the Sacred Heart in my room, which I always believed was a representation of Jesus offering His Heart to us (which it is)--but I understand now that there is another hidden meaning behind those Sacred Heart pictures--what He is also doing is offering our hearts back to us: our hearts after they have been transformed and healed by His Love--which we are welcome to accept or reject as we choose.  A heart fully open and clear of expectations and preconceptions, completely free to love as He loves, if we only have the courage to accept it.