From the Bishops Let us provide gracious example of Gospel living

May 28, 2009

My sister and her family live in San Antonio, Texas, and I travel there a couple of times a year for holidays or family celebrations. I had the occasion to visit there recently when my niece received her first holy Communion. The trip from the Midwest usually requires a change of planes in Dallas. While I was waiting to board the plane there for the last leg of the flight, I witnessed a collective act of graciousness that brightened the atmosphere in the terminal.

 

Flights in and out of San Antonio routinely carry a number of service men and women because of the location of several military bases nearby. This was the case with the flight I was waiting to board. After the gate agent explained the boarding process, naming the various categories of elite and privileged elite passengers that would board in order of status, people picked up their bags and began to focus on the door. Then the agent announced that before anyone else got on the plane she would invite the military personnel to board and get settled. Not only did everyone step back without grumbling, there was spontaneous applause. In an instant, the tone of the place changed from self-focus to recognition of others. The scene was repeated after we landed when the pilot invited us to let those in uniform off first. Suddenly the whole group relaxed as we turned to see whom we might encourage to go ahead of us. I was amazed at how easily this bunch of strangers responded to the invitation to be gracious.

 

The term “gracious” comes from the same Latin root as “grace.” Grace is the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become his adoptive children. Catholic teaching distinguishes types of grace. The grace offered in the sacraments, sanctifying grace, is a share in the life of the Trinity. It establishes a stable relationship with God that makes it possible for us to live forever. This grace makes our free participation possible in the life of faith. Actual grace is the term that describes God’s intervention in our daily lives, enabling us to choose to live in accord with the supernatural life of sacramental grace we have been offered.

 

One of the downsides of the hectic pace that most of us keep these days is the failure to recognize the power and presence of God’s grace. We become hyper-responsible and self-focused, determined to accomplish and achieve, and in the process we loose the awareness of what God is giving us without our earning it. Actual grace surrounds us, as close as and including the air we breathe. The gift of Jesus Christ, the ultimate grace, can become obscured by the immediacy and coarseness of our culture.

 

Grace is God’s antidote to the immediate and the coarse. Because Christ lives in us by the power of grace, we have the privilege of being instruments of grace in our own place, as well as its recipients. The grace-filled gesture of the airline agent reminded me of that recently. Her action invited a gracious response and gracious participation. It was as if I were seeing grace multiplied before my eyes.

 

Printed with permission from the Diocese of Springfield, Illinois.