Seventh Sunday after PentecostEpistle: Romans 6. 19-23;
Gospel: St. Matthew 7. 15-21
Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace is known through faith alone. Today when so many things are thought
relevant only because they are grasped through our experience, many fall
away from the faith. Some stray, and are lost, simply because they have
followed their feelings which have told them grace cannot be real because
they have not "felt" it. It is, however, possible to know that we are in
a state of grace if our words and actions are good, for all good comes
from God.
Since it belongs to the supernatural order, grace escapes our
experience and cannot be known except by faith. We cannot therefore rely
on our feelings or our works to conclude that we are justified and saved.
(Cf. Council of Trent (1547): DS 1533-1534) However, according to the Lord's
words - "Thus you will know them by their fruits" (Matthew 7:20) - reflection
on God's blessings in our life and in the lives of the saints offers us
a guarantee that grace is at work in us and spurs us on to an ever greater
faith and an attitude of trustful poverty.
A pleasing illustration of this attitude is found in the reply of St.
Joan of Arc to a question posed as a trap by her ecclesiastical judges:
"Asked if she knew that she as in God's grace, she replied: 'If I am not,
may it please God to put me in it; if I am, may it please God to keep me
there.' "(Acts of the trial of St. Joan of Arc.) (CCC 2005)
I look forward to meeting you here again next week as, together, we "meet
Christ in the liturgy", Father Cusick
(See also CCC 443, 1821, 1970, 2285, 2611, 2826)
Used with the permission of Fr. Cusick from his
website.
