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The Time After Pentecost
matter what we do, whether we pray or sacrifice and suffer in the discharge our duties. Is it not
almost a habit with us to meet the suggestions of grace with reluctance or refusal? Do we not
often answer: It is not my duty to do this or that; I need not renounce this pleasure, for I am not
commanded to do so; I am not bound to undergo this kind of mortification? Grace is calling
and drawing us; but we despise it. “If thou also hadst known . . . the things that are to thy peace.”
“What doth it profit a man if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his own soul?”
(Mt 16:26.) With every misused grace man’s soul suffers some damage. “If thou also hadst
known” what treasures can be stored up with the help of grace, how each grace is followed by
another one, how each grace of which we make a good use makes us grow in sanctifying grace,
in divine life, making us richer in graces during life and richer in merits for all eternity.
Prayer
Let Thy merciful ears, O Lord, be open to the prayers of Thy suppliant people; and that Thou
mayest grant them their petitions, make them ask such things as shall please Thee. Through
Christ our Lord. Amen.
Wednesday
“The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play” (Epistle). Such frivolity could happen
even at Mount Sinai shortly after God had appeared in His majesty in thunder and lightning.
The Israelites had soon forgotten the miracles God had wrought for them: the passing of the
Red Sea, His presence in the pillar of a cloud and in the pillar of fire, and the miraculous manna
which God gave them daily. The people at the foot of the mountain eat and drink and dance,
paying homage to a golden calf, the idol of the Egyptians. “All these things . . . are written for
our correction, upon whom the ends of the world are come” (Epistle).
“If thou didst know the gift of God” ( Jn 4:10), the value of sanctifying grace! Sanctifying grace
lifts us beyond the merely natural man and his way of perceiving, and makes us participants in
the life of the triune God. Being closely connected with God and immersed in the light and fire
of the divinity, the soul takes on the splendor, ardor, and spirituality of God, receiving a beauty,
nobility, and life resembling divine beauty and life. Thus the soul assumes a form of existence
corresponding to the purity and spirituality of the divine nature, to which is attached as a reward
the virtues of faith, hope, and charity. By the virtue of faith we see God, the world and its events,
and the actions of men with the eyes of God: we see correctly. Hope lifts us above all created
things: we repose in the lap of God, our loving Father, and aided by His power we endeavor to
strive for the highest good, which no created power can attain by itself. Love alone can reach
God: we love God because He is God, after the manner in which He loves us and the eternal
Son loves Him. By the virtue of holy love we become immersed in God as if we were one nature
with Him. Can there be any possession in this world equal to sanctifying grace and the divine
virtues immediately flowing from it?
“If thou also hadst known . . . the things that are to thy peace; but now they are hidden from
thy eyes” (Gospel). These words are also addressed to us. The greatest evil we can suffer is that
of underestimating grace and supernatural values. “The people sat down to eat and drink, and
rose up to play.” We place a higher value on worldly accomplishments than we do on grace.
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