..one liner space again.. enough to say God loves you through me as you read this & everyone in your life this moment. :)
this post is also a follow-up to yesterday’s On Today’s Grace.
For about a week, I’ve been a possession of a great secret that’s really not a great secret.
To me, it was a great secret. I label it as such because it was given to me by the Blessed Virgin Mary when I was pondering her Immaculate Conception. Part of me wants to think it’s really nothing, that it’s something that’s already understood, but for me, I’m standing on the brink of a waterfall, arms outstretched, watching the expanse of the world before me. It was a gift.
Prologue
The genesis of gift begins with Father writing kecharitomene on the whiteboard at the start of Conference #2 during our silent retreat. This is the most accurate translation of “full of grace” when the angel greeted Mary during the Annunciation. It comes from the original Greek and means:
Someone who has been and continues to be overflowing with God’s grace.
Father draws from Luke 1:28:
And the angel being come in, said unto her: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.
From Father’s notes:
Only biblical instance where an angel addresses someone by a title instead of a personal name. The angel doesn’t call her by her name, but “full of grace.” New name given to her by God.
In Scripture a name given by God to someone reveals the person’s deepest reality and mission. Ex. Abraham = Father of nations.
No one else in Scripture is addressed this way.
What Father’s saying here is that the Annunciation marks the beginning of Mary’s mission as the Mother of God and the Mother of Mankind (we would see this during a 2nd Annunciation when Jesus would give Mary to John, the moment she became our Mother, we, her adoptive children.)
This grace she possesses comes from God, and we can carry Catholic belief further in asserting that she freely dispenses these graces as she wills because of who she is - Mother of God and Queen of the Universe. This is God’s wish: that we always have a mother, that we will never be motherless, that we will never, ever, ever be spiritual orphans.
My Thoughts.
It’s as if God foresaw some moment in our lives where there’d be discord within families.. some of us would get left behind. To simply look up and know we have a Mother and Father in heaven so intimately concerned for us is truly Divine..
It comforts me to know that all this time, there’s been Someone who knew me before the universe was created, and that before my little life began, He had a Guardian Angel accompany me since my conception. I’ve thought about this often this past year.. I’ve a Guardian Angel who knows all my history, all my little happies, all my little pitfalls, all my deepest sorrows.. he knows all of me. And if he knows all of me, how much more of me does God know? And how much more foresight did He have to have a Heavenly Mother ready for me always?
Mary possessed fullness of grace before the angel met her. During, and after.. always.
A few hours later after hearing this, I sat down & began to write an entry in my Notebook. We were waiting for Conference #3.. I scribbled down the date, and for a moment, I thought about how much I love the month of October. This is the month my husband and I met (October 27th), it’s the month of the Our Lady’s Holy Rosary, it’s the month of several significant feast days: St. Therese, St. Bruno, The Guardian Angles, St. Bridget of Sweden, St. Teresa of Avila, St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, St. Francis, St. John Paul II, St. Jude, St. Paul of the Cross, St. Gerard, St. Faustina.. who am I missing? Many, many saints I love.
I’m writing the date, and I’m thinking of our saints, I’m thinking of my struggle in detaching from what I love to get ready for my retreat.. I’m thinking this is another of my favorite Octobers, I hope I don’t mess this up, I tell myself.
In between writing “another month like this -” and “grace-filled - will come again,” I thought of Mary being gifted with God’s grace before, during, and after her Annunciation. God will give me grace again, God will give me grace tomorrow..
Doubts of Ready Grace
Now, this is probably one of the greatest shortcomings of being Catholic: there’s the well-known Catholic guilt (something I rejected many years ago.. I’ve had enough of it and I know God loves me enough to cover a multitude of my sins) and there’s the fear of sin. If I sin, I’ve gotta haul it to confession, depending on if it’s mortal or venial. Even if it’s venial, can I live with myself? Or will I begin to obsess over how I messed up I am and go to confession anyway? This is going to impact the grace God gives me, does it not? If I’m in moral sin or in a lesser form of venial sin, wouldn’t this send me down the spiral to hell because grace would, in effect, kinda “bounce off” and go to someone else more worthy? Because, you know, I generally stink at being human.
Thoughts like this are pretty typical. They may not sound erroneous or theologically correct, but they represent the basic psychological response to — what many consider — a demanding religion.
It’s not really like this for me. This isn’t the space to tell you.. this would take a whole chapter of a book, maybe (.. hey!..), but I guess my Catholic psychological make-up can be summed up into this:
I believe God is both merciful and just, but while I am on this earth, He is more merciful to me, because I am kno-nothing veronica, just a little one, who loves God - God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, Jesus’ mother Mary, all the Saints and Angels, His Church, and all His Holy Realm.. I believe God can’t help but be merciful to me because I have a good heart and He just knows I will mess up. I’ve lived worse, and I do better today, and my aim is to do better always, but most importantly, to love in Love. I live according to His commandments, not necessarily to the who-knows-what proscribed by so-and-so. I put God first. I let Him take care of me and not worry too much, because I have to get to work loving as I roam about this earth. What else am I supposed to do? What else can I do? I’ve not the cure for cancer, I’ve not founded a house for the poor. I can only be me, moment by moment, in Love.
So, no.. my Catholic religion isn’t too demanding. I do Catholicism, it forms me, somehow, mystically, and it runs in the background like an OS.. and I must go about my Father’s business in my life. I go to where He attracts me in Love, I obey, I love. It’s not hard. No time for Catholic guilt, no time for fear of sin (although I do maintain a healthy rejection of it).
Dearest.. no matter what, God’s grace will be there for me tomorrow. I know He graces me over night, and He gives me fresh grace everyday, for whatever it is I need, whatever I am to do..
When I’d come to these holy moments in my life - like this retreat - I’d get so freaked out because I didn’t want to squander God’s love. Maybe this is a subtext of guilt, this is where my Catholic guilt shows up.. of not having returned love for Love in my life. And I would approach these moments, my retreats, my Masses, my feast days, as though these were the only times I could be holy, the only times I could be perfect to receive every single drop of grace perfectly, without obstruction, the way God intended me to .. maybe before the fall. What kind of fiction was this?
There is no perfection in this life.. we can only pursue the way of perfection, and optimally, leave at a time when we’ve reached sanctity with God’s help. I am inherently flawed, even in receiving His grace.. but I will try to do better, and He will help me be better over time! I don’t have to be perfect to have the perfect spiritual experience.. this will happen in His time, not mine. For my thoughts are not your thoughts: nor your ways my ways, saith the Lord. (Is 55:8)
There’s tomorrow. I will not worry about tomorrow. I want to operate in the present moment, live fully in the present moment with God. This is all I can take care of, make a habit of. The rest, I leave to Him.
Because from what I’ve noticed about the pattens in my life, my needs have changed constantly, as has my growth as a soul.. and where He directs me has always been unexpected and an adventure.. He’s the one to take care of it all, really.
How wonderful it is to abdicate the power of one’s life to God.
My Notebook
This is what I wrote:
October - another day, another month like this - *grace-filled* - will come again.
—
Confidence - that God’s grace will be with me in the future [as long as I try].
Let me rephrase:
If I can be calm, thoughtful, & use this grace now in the present moment - use it to its full capacity to accomplish God’s Will, then surely His grace will be there tomorrow. I need not worry about tomorrow when I must use today to accomplish His Will through His grace today.
<— all that before came the moment before I was about to write.
I felt anxious, thinking I wanted to learn everything now, absorb everything now, take care of it now, learn & transform now, bc I’m going to mess up tomorrow. I need to get it right now because tomorrow.. who knows, the thinking has left me.
— this is why I have this heightened sense of urgency. Take call now, fear of tomorrow. This probably comes from how I was raised - tomorrow is already doomed, it’s wrong, past will be revisited & it will all be destroyed, anyway.*
I live in Hope and refuse all else.
I should have just posted this, dearest, and saved you the trouble.. I’m sorry.. but I’ll leave it there.
I still don’t know if I got my point across.. maybe I could sum it up thus: In the model of Mary, I believe God has graced me before today, He graced me today, and He will continue to grace me tomorrow to help me get through my life. I will have my bad days in God’s grace, but that doesn’t mean He will love me any less. I need to remember this always in Confidence, as I bring a new awareness to my spiritual life: to do the Will of the Father. What is His Will for me today? And then for me to be faithful in this day.
O.. to tell you about God the Father. This is next. I promise to keep it short.
—
Non nobis, Domine, non nobis, sed nomini tuo da gloriam, 10.08.2020
*there are so many personal stories connected to this and other little realizations I make.. this is why I always feel my writing is incomplete.. and I go on and on and on..
Ps 118:1
Happy are they whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord.Introit, Sancta Missa, S. Birgittæ Viduæ