May I welcome you, Lord!

Welcome to you, Lord! The fruits of the earth are offered to those who opened the hands willingly. You come, make yourself a personal gift and become a cross for me, how I am wretched, Lord! I am capable of suffering when you come, I am able to feel the weigh of your burden. And holiness is to receive you. You that descended because I did not make the effort to climb. May my life kneel: then, on the bare ground I will understand the mystery of the gift made to my land.

-- Servant of God Anastasio Cardinal Ballestrero, ocd (Fr Anastasius of the Holy Rosary)

translated by ocdsister

Sanctifying grace: the essence of the spiritual life

"Sanctifying grace is the essence of the spiritual life from its earliest stages to its full unfolding. As its name indicates, it is a gratuitous gift of God, Who, by His own free and merciful will makes mortal men sharers in His divine life.

This divine life is out of all proportion to human nature and its exigencies; yet, when offered it respects all the claims of the freedom and the personal dignity of man.

This is how the gift of God is at once a life-giving reality (it is at the root of the supernatural life) and a fact of life (it works within, not outside of, the vital egg and flow of the creature's freedom and responsibility). This is also why the Christian is capable of merit and personal sanctity.

It is by becoming a reality most intimately personal to a man and by working in him as a principle of divine life that sanctifying grace is directed towards action"

-- Everything is Grace by Fr Anastasius of the Holy Rosary, ocd

Sin: an offer of grace?

"When God permits a sin, though it be that of Judas, there is in the very permitting of it an offer of grace which can be so great as to force us to cry: O felix culpa! With the aid of this grace humility can replace despair and lead one again to life.

When God permits that continual falling into infidelities from which a weak will does not know how to defend itself, His permission is at the same time the gesture of grace with which He lifts us up to brace ourselves in His arms, which have the strength of omnipotence and the tenderness of mercy.

When the consciousness of our weakness and anxious foreboding sow suffering in the heart, is not our Lord offering us the grace of His bosom as a sure refuge and of his Providence as a guarantee of His protection?

There is, then, no reason to despair. Even that which, in the light of Providence seems a shadow, such as sin and evil, is definitely an occasion of grace for the one who knows how to accept it and to place his trust in faithful abandonment by hope.

From this perspective - which is that of Saint Theresa of the Child Jesus - the practice of abandonment is not only a general confidence in the future goodness and mercy of our Lord, but also, and above all, the expression of unshakable certitude in the continual and actual offering of graces like droplets bedewing all the things of life.

This certitude is what gives to abandonment the lilt of serenity and joy, far different from the clamor of desires."

-- Everything as a Grace by Fr Anastasius of the Holy Rosary, ocd

Grace in the midst of turmoil

"Actual graces are acts of the divine will; it will be enough, therefore, for God, in order to manifest these graces to souls, to make use of the means through which His will is known to us, namely, Divine Providence.

It could be objected that not all that happens within the scope of Providence is an actual grace, at least for the reason that many things are simply the permissive will of God, while grace involves the will of good pleasure. However, the bottom falls out of the objection if we consider that the acceptance of all of Providence is something desired by God as obligatory for us.

This acceptance by us is, then, what God desires of us, and on our part there results a filial obligation. However, God does not impose any obligation upon us without offering us the grace to fulfill it. From this it follows that every event, even though it only be permitted by Divine Providence, is for us a real and objective offer of actual grace. Here, finally, we begin to see the full richness of the bold assertion of St Therese of the Child Jesus: Everything is a grace.

This is also the thought of St Paul: 'And we know that to them that love God all things work together unto good;' and St Thomas, commenting on the words of the Apostle adds the note: 'even sin.' This may seem disconcerting, but even short reflections shows that it is not, if one considers the mysterious wisdom with which God permits us to be cast down that so we may be brought to humility and prayer. In this soil His grace will bring perfection and love to full flower."

-- Everything is a Grace by Fr Anastasius of the Holy Rosary, ocd