“Saints burn grace like a 747 burns fuel at takeoff,” wrote the late American philosopher Dallas Willard. If we know that we need fuel to get off the ground, where are we getting it?
We will be relieved to know that the grace pumps don’t empty pockets like the fuel pumps that we love to hate. Grace was purchased for us at an exorbitant cost: Jesus’ suffering and death on the cross. But, because of the liberality of his love and mercy there is no limit to our access to grace. It never dries up.
All spiritual work is powered by grace. Building a healthy and holy marriage and family are powered by grace. Good priests are powered by grace. Any apostolate that bears fruit is powered by grace. Without grace, marriages wither and die. Likewise good works and friendships.
A powerful little prayer called the Freedom Prayer says: “I repent of relying on my own strength. Without you, Jesus, I can do nothing!” True freedom is knowing that Jesus is the source of all that is good, true, and beautiful.
In their podcast “Restore the Glory,” therapists Jake Khym and Bob Schuchts talk about sources of grace as a means to healing both personally and within marriages. When we need healing, we need to ask ourselves: where are the places and spaces I can encounter God and he can fill me with himself?
The obvious answer is the sacramental life, particularly the sacrament of confession. Confession is the only place that can reach the unnamable and often unmanageable spiritual pain that no medication or human person can reach. The Lord, in his profound mercy, has given us a place that can do something about the pain, and unlike the emergency room the wait times are decent.
When we choose to fill our mind with images that uplift us and inspire us and bring us closer to God, we gain grace. When we listen to talks or podcasts on the spiritual life, we fill ourselves with God himself. Likewise with music that lifts the soul. We have choices to make and the effects of our choices will be felt by those around us, especially when our 747 is not able to make takeoff.
As for other sources of grace, we need to look to the body of Christ; those members of our community who are actively trying to grow in virtue and love of God, daily. Dr. Schuchts speaks about seeking out trusted friends and mentors to help support you and call you to a higher standard. We need places that can “validate your pain but not validate your judgements and destructive behaviours,” he says.
We need to understand that no relationship problem is ever one-sided. Even if one person in the relationship is overtly and repeatedly abusive or destructive, we need to love them enough to work on the “renewal of our minds” and to choose not to stay stuck in enabling and manipulating behaviours. Do we love the other person enough to work on our own character? By working on ourselves through actively accumulating grace, we begin to clearly see how our action or inaction is perpetuating or even intensifying the problem.
If one person has an addiction, the other person is often locked into a reactive role. Their resentment and pain tends to inflict more pain on the addicted/ unwell person and the cycle intensifies. Even though someone looking into the situation would see the addiction as the obvious problem, there is pain being experienced on both sides. The level of willfulness varies but the experience of pain is not necessarily dependent on our intentions. The “well” person, when left to their own devices, can hurt the “unwell” person out of resentment or exasperation, and the experience of pain can be just as real and crippling.
We need grace to grow in virtue and character. Grace allows us to see the situation from outside of our emotions and to make mature decisions out of love for the other person. When we are praying daily and receiving the sacraments with attention and care, we will grow in virtue and our ability to navigate our suffering will become remarkably less strenuous. We are never promised that life will be easy but Jesus promises to give us his peace.
Mother Angelica, the founder of EWTN, often prayed that the Lord would heal her memories. She wrote that sometimes an event that happened years ago would loom up and make the anger and resentment resurface. In response, she wrote this beautiful prayer:
“Have I not been the recipient of your mercy and forgiveness? Is it not a greater thing for me to offend God than for a fellow creature to offend me? You forgive and forget so completely and so graciously. Let me bury all of my unpleasant memories in your ocean of mercy and drown them forever in those peaceful waters. May the phantoms of yesterday never take up residence in today and destroy my tomorrow. Give me hope, Lord Father, to trust in your forgiveness and let me always give my neighbour the benefit of the doubt so I may forgive him from my heart.”
